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BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Ultimo Aggiornamento: 23/08/2021 11:16
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02/07/2010 20:19
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See preceding page for earlier entries today, 7/2/10.




Italian mountain city to be
the Church's 'pulsating heart'
during Sunday's Papal visit



Rome, Italy, Jul 2, 2010 (CNA/EWTN News).- On July 4, Pope Benedict XVI will make an Pastoral Visit to the town of Sulmona, Italy. During his visit, which the local region's president said will "in a moment" turn the area into the center of the Universal Church, he will visit Pope Celestine V's relics.

Gianni Chiodi, president of Italy's Abruzzo region where both Sulmona and L'Aquila are located, looked forward to the visit this Sunday saying that "with the presence of the Pontiff, Sulmona and Abruzzo, land in need of hope, rebirth and development, will become for a time the pulsating heart of the Universal Church."

Arriving on Sunday morning by helicopter, Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate Mass in the town square, Piazza Garibaldi. Highlights for the day include the inauguration of a house for elderly and sick priests bearing the Pope's name, an encounter with youth in the local cathedral and a visit to the its crypt where he will venerate the relics of Sts. Panfilo and Celestine.

The remains of 13th century Pope Celestine V, known as St. Celestine, were spared in the earthquake in L'Aquila in April 2009 that destroyed the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio where his body was held in a glass casket.

The Holy Father visited the city and venerated Celestine V's relics later that month, placing his Papal pallium upon the saint's body. Later, in Sept. of that year, the glass reliquary was moved to a chapel in the Cathedral of Sulmona where it is still housed.

The Holy Father's visit comes during the Celestine Year proclaimed by him in Aug. 2009 for the 800th anniversary of the the saint's birth.

St. Panfilo, who also lies in the crypt of Sulmona's cathedral, was a 7th century Italian bishop.



The diocesan preparations for the visit continue to be most impressive - far better than for any of the Pope's pastoral visits in Italy, and more detailed than any of the papal visits abroad, comparable only to the Sydney WYD preps! For Sunday, they have prepared flyers which contain the event map, program schedule and papal routes at a glance.



The numbered sites are illustrated below:


They have similar flyers to identify parking places and bus stops, as well as the mountain sites around Sulmona that the Pope will overfly in the helicopter: the Eremo San Onofrio where Pope Celestine V retreated, and the extensive remains of the Tempio Ercole Curino (Hercules Curinus) from Roman antiquity - both on the slope of Mt. Morrone, the major peak in the moutnain backdrop for Sulmona; and the nearby Abbazia Santo Spirito, begun by Celestine V as a chapel in 1241 and then enlarged to become a monastery.




The Mass site on Piazza Garibaldi is all set. Tomorrow, the casket of St. Pope Celestine V will be taken to the altar here, and Mons. Angelo Spina, the diocesan bishop, will say Mass. Today, the space was to be used all day for heaaring confessions.


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02/07/2010 21:32
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At the bottom of the preceding page of this thread, David posted Michael Sean Winter's rejoinder in National Catholic Reporter to the New York Times's latest 'magnum opus malum' against the Holy Father. I must salute whoever takes the trouble to go through an nth rebuttal of the Times's calculatedly malicious lies!....

Meanwhile, let me use this space for an interview given by Jeffrey Lena to Vatican Radio, which I didn't see in transcript till today, although a couple of news reports referred to it:





Vatican lawyer addresses
media misunderstanding of
suits against the Vatican




30 Jun 10 (RV) Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a lawsuit that challenges the Vatican's immunity from prosecution in clerical sex abuse cases. Jeffrey Lena is the California-based attorney currently representing the Holy See in the Oregon case of John Doe vs the Holy See.

In the following interview, Mr Lena responds to erroneous reporting in the mass media, and reiterates that “the fact that the Holy See is not involved, and the priest in question was not an employee of the Holy See. That is not to say that the victim is not truly a victim. He surely suffered as no child ever deserves to suffer, and there is no question in this case that this man was victimized by a priest”:


Mr Lena, The media reading of the issue can appear to be somewhat simplistic. Headlines is several Italian newspapers were variations on the theme of:
- "Vatican risks bankruptcy"
- "U.S. Supreme Court denuies Holy See immunity"
- "Green light to million-dollar pay-outs for abuse victims"
- "Pope could be called to testify"....

LENA: As to the risk that the Vatican may go into bankruptcy, that is completely unfounded. In the first instance this case is still discussing jurisdiction. We haven’t gotten anywhere near the question of whether there is liability in the case, so nobody should be concerned about that. In addition even if there were a question of liability, there are very strict rules about collection and it’s not even an issue in this case.

The second point was relating to the Supreme Court denying immunity. The Supreme Court did not deny immunity. What the Supreme Court did was decide that it wasn’t going to address a question which we had wished to bring before it. That was a question that, on the substantive law, I think we were right.

The United States [Office of the Solicitor-General] agreed with us, but the Supreme Court simply determined that at this time, it was not interested in hearing the case. The fact that it wasn’t interested in hearing the case, as I say, did not deny immunity and was not a comment on the merits of our position.

Nor is it a green light to payouts. As I say we are still discussing jurisdiction in the case and that’s simply not on the radar at all.

I did read in several of the Italian papers discussion of possible depositions of the Pope and Cardinal Bertone and Cardinal Sodano. That is all completely unfounded. I don’t have a doubt that there will be an attempt. I think that the attorney on the other side is interested in trying. The law will protect them however.

It is important to acknowledge the fact that the Holy See is not involved [in this case] and that we must clearly take this position: the priest in question was not an employee of the Holy See!

That is not to say that the victim is not truly a victim here. He surely suffered as no child ever deserves to suffer, and there is no question in this case that this young man was victimized by a priest.

However, responsibility for damages for that suffering, justly should fall upon the religious order which supervised him, controlled his activities, and transferred him [assigned him to the diocese where he committed the offense]. Not on the Holy See.

The central question seems to be whether or not particular individuals were or were not employees of the Holy See. How does one go about doing that?
Well, let me say initially - this case like some of the cases which have been attempted in the past, brought a variety of issues. The plaintiffs attempted to claim fraud, they attempted to claim negligence, they attempted to claim conspiracy.

We have already eliminated all of those claims from the case long ago, notwithstanding the fact that they still keep appearing in the headlines. But this particularly the case is now narrowed down to one issue, which is whether or not the priest in question, Andrew Ronan, was an employee of the Holy See.

Now the factors that generally determine whether a person is an employee include day-to-day control of the person, payment to the person for services rendered, insurance for the person, the understanding of the parties as to whether or not the person is employed, and a variety of other factors. None of these factors are met in this case.

This is a priest who was entirely unknown to the Holy See until after the events in question. The plaintiffs attorney has suggested in the papers that because this priest had gone from Ireland to the USA and then returned to Ireland , that somehow it was an “international transfer” and therefore the Holy See must be involved.

That’s just really based upon a misunderstanding of how the Catholic Church works, of how Religious Orders operate, and various other misunderstandings.

As to evidence, there is some evidence in the case, and this is important to point out. Mr. Anderson, who is the attorney for the other side, hasn’t mentioned this to the press, but the fact is that he has gathered a lot of evidence but it all points in the other direction.

The evidence shows that Ronan was a priest of a religious order active in the United States and Ireland which had full control over this priest and was knowledgeable about this priest, but that neither the diocese involved nor the Holy See had any knowledge or control over him.

Is the Supreme Court decision likely to impact on other cases currently being heard in the U.S. ? And, at worst, is it likely to open the way to a plethora of new lawsuits against the Vatican?
I would not exclude that someone may attempt to file another lawsuit. It's important to understand that the obstacles which that lawsuit would face are exactly the same obstacles that this lawsuit faces.

The denial by the Supreme Court to take up the petition for certiorari, say was not a denial in any way of immunity, but one related to a very narrow issue, to the scope of employment under the federal law. This is an issue that has no bearing on any other case.

at present, there is a case in Wisconsin known as the Murphy case which Mr. Anderson wishes to bring against the Holy See - that case is thus far completely inactive. Then there is a case in Kentucky = that case addresses a very different issue which is whether or not the bishop in the Archdiocese of Louisville is an employee of the Holy See, a theory that is equally unfounded.

So those are the two other cases thus far, and there really are none other. As I say, it may be that out of misperception one or two cases are now filed, but I don’t anticipate that those will have any more success than these cases have.

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A letter from the Pope
to Cardinal Bertone

Translated from

June 25, 2010


Another item I missed posting in a timely manner is a letter from the Holy Father to Cardinal Bertone who marked the Golden Jubilee of his ordination to the priesthood last month. The letter is dated June 1 but was published on Page 1 of L'Osservatore Romano on June 25, the day after Bertone celebrated the anniversary by saying Holy Mass in the Cathedral of Genoa with Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, who succeeded him as Archbishop of Genoa.



The papal letter was written in Latin, for which reason the pronouns are a bit strange - the Pope refers to himself in the first person plural, and addreses Bertone in the second person familiar (not obvious in English which does not have a second person formal but obvious in the Italian translation provided by the Vatican).

The letter is an open reaffirmation of the Pope's confidence in his right-hand man and of his affection. Many in the Italian media believe - and say so - that Bertone has not exactly been an outstanding SecState and has consistently shown an unjustifiably delayed reaction to open attacks against the Pope. But the Pope counts on his friendship, and for that we must be thankful to him.







To our venerated brother
Tarcisio Cardinale Bertone S.D.B.
Secretary of State and
Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church

Because of the reciprocal and assiduous familiarity between us, which comes from the fact that we find ourselves together almost daily, it is right and fitting that we should personally express our best wishes to you as you mark the fiftieth year of your ordination to the priesthood.

Beyond this very pleasant task, we also wish to communicate to you through this letter in order that the consideration we hold for you may be made more clear.

While we are going through difficult times, we know that your mind goes back to the happier things of the past, when through the imposition of hands by our venerated brother Albino Mensa, you were promoted to holy orders, surrounded by your family and brother priests.

Nor do we ignore that afterwards, well educated in juridical matters, you dedicated yourself to educating and guiding young people through your taeching and writing, both within and outside your Salesian family.

It was not surprising, then, that you gained an important position as well as the esteem of our predecessor, the Venerable Servant of God John Paul II, who made you Archbishop of Vercelli where you were a faithful announcer of divine good.

At the wish of the same Pontiff, you then began to carry out the function of Secretary in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, establishing with us a happy familiarity in doing our common work.

Even in the Church of Genoa, to which you then dedicated your apostolic zeal and efforts, there was ample testimony of your pastoral ministry for the benefit of that ecclesial community, where you achieved a more illustrious title when you were made part of the College of Cardinals.

More recently, we wanted you to be a close collaborator, by choosing you as Secretary of State with whom to share decisions and tasks. Without a doubt, you are doing all you can with great commitment and expertise as a participant in our pastoral projects for the universal Church, and in our initiatives for the whole world to strengthen the family of God and that the world may become more harmonious.

Thus, even as we rejoice from the heart in remembering the joyful start of your priesthood and express these sentiments of esteem and our affectionate congratulations, we also invoke abundant recompense from the Divine Master, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians and of Don Giovanni Bosco.

Finally, to you, venerated Brother, we impart with fraternal affection the Apostolic Blessing, also intended for all those to whom you are linked by kinship and by work.


From the Vatican
June 1, 2010
The sixth year of our Pontificate





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Pope Benedict XVI receives
a new ambassador from Iraq


The Holy Father on Friday received the letters of credence presented by Iraq's new ambassador to the Holy See, H.E. Habbeb Mohammed Radi Ali Al-Sadr.



The Pope reiterated the Church's call on the iraqi authorities to protect and respect the rights of religious minorities including the Christians, and appreciated teh ambassador's statement that the Iraqi government wishes local Christians to remain in their ancestral homeland.

Here is the text of the Holy Father's address to the new ambassador. It was delivered in English:


Your Excellency,

I am pleased to welcome you at the start of your mission and to accept the Letters accrediting you as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Iraq to the Holy See. I thank you for your kind words, and I ask you to convey to President Jalal Talabani my respectful greetings and the assurance of my prayers for the peace and well-being of all the citizens of your country.

On 7 March 2010, the people of Iraq gave a clear sign to the world that they wish to see an end to violence and that they have chosen the path of democracy, through which they aspire to live in harmony with one another within a just, pluralist and inclusive society.

Despite attempts at intimidation on the part of those who do not share this vision, the people showed great courage and determination by presenting themselves at the polling stations in large numbers.

It is to be hoped that the formation of a new Government will now proceed swiftly so that the will of the people for a more stable and unified Iraq may be accomplished.

Those who have been elected to political office will need to show great courage and determination themselves, in order to fulfil the high expectations that have been placed in them.

You may be assured that the Holy See, which has always valued its excellent diplomatic relations with your country, will continue to provide whatever assistance it can, so that Iraq may assume its rightful place as a leading nation in the region with much to contribute to the international community.

The new Government will need to give priority to measures designed to improve security for all sectors of the population, particularly the various minorities. You have spoken of the difficulties faced by Christians and I note your comments about the steps taken by the Government to afford them greater protection.

The Holy See naturally shares the concern you have expressed that Iraqi Christians should remain in their ancestral homeland, and that those who have felt constrained to emigrate will soon consider it safe to return.

Since the earliest days of the Church, Christians have been present in the land of Abraham, a land which is part of the common patrimony of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is greatly to be hoped that Iraqi society in the future will be marked by peaceful coexistence, as is in keeping with the aspirations of those who are rooted in the faith of Abraham.

Although Christians form a small minority of Iraq's population, they have a valuable contribution to make to its reconstruction and economic recovery through their educational and healthcare apostolates, while their engagement in humanitarian projects provides much-needed assistance in building up society.

If they are to play their full part, however, Iraqi Christians need to know that it is safe for them to remain in or return to their homes, and they need assurances that their properties will be restored to them and their rights upheld.

Recent years have seen many tragic acts of violence committed against innocent members of the population, both Muslim and Christian, acts which as you have pointed out are contrary to the teachings of Islam as well as those of Christianity.

This shared suffering can provide a deep bond, strengthening the determination of Muslims and Christians alike to work for peace and reconciliation. History has shown that some of the most powerful incentives to overcome division come from the example of those men and women who, having chosen the courageous path of non-violent witness to higher values, have lost their lives through cowardly acts of violence.

Long after the present troubles have receded into the past, the names of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, Father Ragheed Ganni and many more will live on as shining examples of the love that led them to lay down their lives for others.

May their sacrifice, and the sacrifice of so many others like them, strengthen within the Iraqi people the moral determination that is necessary if political structures for greater justice and stability are to achieve their intended effect.

You have spoken of your Government's commitment to respect human rights. Indeed, it is of the utmost importance for any healthy society that the human dignity of each of its citizens be respected both in law and in practice, in other words that the fundamental rights of all should be recognized, protected and promoted.

Only thus can the common good be truly served, that is to say those social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to flourish, to attain their full stature, and to contribute to the good of others (cf. Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 164-170).

Among the rights that must be fully respected if the common good is to be effectively promoted, the rights to freedom of religion and freedom of worship are paramount, since it is they that enable citizens to live in conformity with their transcendent dignity as persons made in the image of their divine Creator.

I therefore hope and pray that these rights will not only be enshrined in legislation, but will come to permeate the very fabric of society - all Iraqis have a part to play in building a just, moral and peaceable environment.

You begin your term of office, Mr Ambassador, in the months leading up to a particular initiative of the Holy See for the support of the local Churches throughout the region, namely the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops.

This will provide a welcome opportunity to explore the role and the witness of Christians in the lands of the Bible, and will also give an impetus to the important task of inter-religious dialogue, which has so much to contribute to the goal of peaceful coexistence in mutual respect and esteem among the followers of different religions.

It is my earnest hope that Iraq will emerge from the difficult experiences of the past decade as a model of tolerance and cooperation among Muslims, Christians and others in the service of those most in need.

Your Excellency, I pray that the diplomatic mission that you begin today will further strengthen the bonds of friendship between the Holy See and your country. I assure you that the various departments of the Roman Curia are always ready to offer help and support in the fulfilment of your duties.

With my sincere good wishes, I invoke upon you, your family, and all the people of the Republic of Iraq, abundant divine blessings.


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Pope meets sponsors
of WYD 2011 in Madrid

Translated from

July 3, 2010

Benedict XVI told a Spanish delegation led by the Archbishop of Madrid, Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, that World Youth Day is not simply an international gathering of young Catholics but above all, an occasion for them to let themselves be conquered by Crhist's love.



Above, left: Another 'wasted' photo by OR, in which meaningless dark figures in the foreground dominate the figure of the Pope you almost have to look for him; right, the Pope with Cardinal Varela in a 2006 meeting.

The Pope met with sponsors of the Madrid WYD in 2011 Friday noon at the Consistory Hall of the Apostolic Palace, and addressed them in Spanish. Here is a translation:


Dear brother in the Episcopate,
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
Friends:

I sincerely thank the Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid for the kind words he addressed to med in the name of the patrons of the Foundation Madrid Vivo, and all of you, during this stage of preparation for World Youth Day which will be celebrated in the Spanish capital next year.

Already , there are many young people who are looking forward to being in your beautiful city, where they will find themselves together to listen to the Word of Christ, which is always fresh, and to share the faith that unites them and their desire to build a better world, inspired by the values of the Gospel.

I ask you all to continue working together generously in this beautifu initiative, which is not just a reunion of multitudes, but a favorable occasion for the youth of your country and of the entire world to allow themselves to be conqured by the love of Jesus Christ, son of God and of Mary, our faithful friend, , conqueror of sin and death.

Whoever trusts in him will never be defrauded but will find the necessary strength to choose the right way of life.

To all of you and your families, I will remember you fertently in prayer, asking God to bless the efforts you are making so that teh next World Youth Day may produce abundant fruits. May the Most Blessed Mary accompany you always with her maternal love. Many thanks.




The Holy Father dons a WYD 2011 cap presented to him by 17-year-old Paula Rodriguez of Madrid after a GA on 3/31/10.

More details below about the Spanish delegation's visit to Rome. I have left out the parts about the Pope;s address:

Pope looks forward to 2011,
signs up as first pilgrim



...Many of the 55 people present for the audience with the Pope on Friday were from the "Madrid Vivo" Foundation, founded by the cardinal and local businessmen last year to "seek solutions to the moral roots of the economic crisis" and to make the city more aware of values.

Yagode la Cierva, executive director and spokesman for WYD 2011 explained to journalists in the Holy See's Press Office that the major aim ofthe foundation at the moment is collaboration with the organizers of the next World Youth Day, to be held in the Spanish capital.

He said that after the audience the Pope signed a registration form as the first pilgrim for WYD2011.

He also mentioned that plans are moving forward smoothly for the encounter for which Cardinal Rouco Varela expects more than two million participants, including more than 600,000 youth will come from outside of Spain.

Among the broad cross-section of details he provided regarding the complexities of the considerations that go into planning for the"Day" and the variety of charitable contributions they have received, the executive director explained that planners are making extensive use of social networks to get feedback from youth and give them a greater say in decisions regarding the initiative.

To reach out to youth, the organizing committee has 70 volunteers working online in 17 different languages. Mr. de la Cierva said proudly that their Facebook page just welcomed their 111,111th "friend," a "significant" milestone for WYD 2011

With 409 days before WYD 2011 opens in Madrid, organizers say that over 600,000 pilgrims from countries outside Spain have pre-registered to take part in the week-long encounter with the Holy Father.

The event, which will take place in Madrid from August 16-21, 2011, is a week long journey of faith and solidarity for young people around the world. The large international gathering occurs every three years, and culminates with vespers, an overnight vigil and an outdoor Mass celebrated by the Pope.

So far, organizers report that 120,000 Italians, 70,000 French, 50,000 Poles and 25,000 North Americans have signed up for the event. The majority of the pilgrims have signed up in groups, whether it be from their diocese, youth group, parish, or other organization.



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Saturday, July 3, 13th Week in Ordinary Time

Paintings on the left: St. Thomas by El Greco; and 'Doubting Thomas' by Caravaggio. Sculpture of Jesus and Thomas, by Andrea del Verrocchio. Prayer card, second from right, depicts St. Thomas receiving Our Lady's sash, according to an ancient legend.
ST. THOMAS (b Judea, d India), Apostle and Martyr
Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis on 9/27/06 to this apostle
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20060927...
He points out that he was always mentioned in the four apostles' lists compiled in the Gospels as well as in Acts. More importantly, he said or occasioned sayings by Jesus which are among the best known from the Bible. Shortly before the Passion, when Jesus said he was going to Bethany near Jerusalem to see Lazarus who had died, Thomas told his fellow Apostles, "Let us go so we may die with him" - the essence, says the pope, of discipleship. At the Last Supper, he tells Jesus, "We do not know where you are going - how can we know the way?" And Jesus answers, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life". Eight days after Easter, at the famous scene where he touches the wounds of Jesus, he exclaims "My Lord and My God!" - as Benedict XVI calls it, 'the most splendid profession of faith in the New Testament'. And Jesus tells Thomas and all of us, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe". When the Apostles dispersed to spread the Gospel after Pentecost, Thomas travelled the farthest, first evangelizing in Syria and Persia, and then in western and southern India, where he was stoned and stabbed to death by Brahmins near Madras. Indian Catholics cherish a legend that since Thomas was not present at Mary's death, he had a vision of her Assumption during which she tossed her sash to him.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/070310.shtml



OR today.

The Pope tells the new ambassador from Iraq that Muslims and Christians must live together in peace and reconciliation, and meets with
sponsors of WYD 2011 to be held in Madrid. Page 1 international news: World markets rebound slightly after a collapse due to latest economic
data from the US and China; Obama calls for massive immigration reform; and 30 Mexicans are killed in the latest of bloody clashes between
rival drug gangs near the border with Arizona. In the inside pages, a previously unpublished interview with the martyred Mons. Luigi
Padovese given in Oct. 2009 to writers for Oasis, Cardinal Scola's journal for Christian-Muslim dialog, in which Padovese talks
about the religious situation in Turkey.




THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with

- Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples

- Mons. Nikola Eterović, Secretary General of the Bishops' Synod

- Mons. Józef Kowalczyk, Archbishop of Gniezno (Poland)

- Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (weekly meeting)

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Benedict XVI acts in
the name of Church unity

Translated from

July 3, 2010

Over the past several days, the words and actions of the Pope have been exceptionally intense and decisive for the internal life of the Church.

It is significant that they clustered around the annual Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul which does call our attention to the mission entrusted by Christ to Peter and his successors to sustain and orient the faith in the community of believers.

Among the initiatives taken by the Pope these days is the creation of a dicastery to promote new evangelization in secularized and secularizing once-Christian countries.

But I wish to highlight his personal and direct engagement in maintaining unity within the Church community itself.

The Pope has said many times that the most serious dangers and temptations for the Church come from within - among its own members. In the difficult times we are going through, tensions induced from the outside also make it easier for internal tensions to emerge, contributing to increase confusion and uncertainty.

The audiences that the Pope held this week - Monday, with Cardinals Schoenborn and Sodano, and Thursday, with the emeritus bishop of Augsburg - demonstrate that he himself is commited to do everything to heal tensions and misunderstandings that trouble the community.

"In times of conflicts and uncertainties," says the Vatican communique last Thursday after the audience with Mons. Mixa, "the world expects Christians to bear common witness that, on the basis of their encounter with the Risen Lord, they are capable of helping each other as well as all of society in order to find the right way to the future".

These are the Pope's own sentiments, his own exquisitely evangelical and clear witness. We should follow his example.


CNS's John Thavis, however, takes the run-of-the-media-mill Chicken-Little view of recent developments - the 'sky is falling!' approach that both secular and Catholic media have generally taken about events in the Church, principally fuelled, of course, by the fact that media only ever report bad news about the Church and exaggerate every negative element they can. They all ignore the fact that this has been the story of the Church since it was established - ever 'the sign of contradiction' Jesus said it was meant to be.... The headline itself is meaningless - it could have been written in any season, in the year 1224, or in 2009, in 2011 and afterwards! The Vatican - like any human institution, of which it is the world's longest continuing one - is always faced with internal and external challenges.


Long, hot summer:
Vatican faces external
and internal challenges

By John Thavis


VATICAN CITY, July 2 (CNS) -- Early July is when things usually slow down at the Vatican, as top Church officials wrap up loose ends and prepare to go on vacation.

But the mood at the Vatican this year is anything but serene. [You cannot say Pope Benedict XVI is not!] Pope Benedict XVI and his key advisers are facing a series of external and internal conflicts that threaten to make this a long, hot summer of problem-solving and strategizing.

One hesitates to use the word "unprecedented" when writing about the Vatican. But it's difficult to remember a time when so much bad news has landed at the Vatican's doorstep. [Yeah? Try the Middle Ages, or the years of the Counter-Reformation, or the years preceding Italian unification! Or even the months when the US sex abuse scandal was all the rage, no pun intended. No institution's history is as rife with so many well-documented crises as the Church.]

The Belgian police raid on the archdiocesan headquarters and residences near Brussels June 24 left Vatican officials stunned, and illustrated just how much the sex abuse crisis has lowered the Church's standing in the eyes of some civil authorities. [Put it down to the bigoted narrowmindedness of a petty magistrate and his minions - it happens all the time, only this time, it earned world headlines! And who came out worse in that episode? The supposed 'men of law' who ignored civilized standards of respect for human rights! ]

The country's bishops were held for nine hours as police confiscated files, computers and cell phones. The ultimate affront came when the police drilled into the tombs of two dead cardinals and inserted cameras to look for supposed hidden documents -- which were not found.

The police action brought sharp criticism from Pope Benedict, [He could not have been more gentle - 'sadness... at the surprising and deplorable manner' can by no means be described as 'sharp'] who was careful, however, to defend the right of civil authorities to investigate priestly sex abuse.

The problem is that the Church also claims a responsibility to investigate such abuse according to church law. [And what is the problem there, Mr. Thavis? Canonical and civilian investigations of the same offense are not mutually exclusive!]

In the Vatican's view, the Church and civil responsibilities are parallel, but in Belgium they collided head-on. Police confiscated more than 400 files belonging to an investigating commission created by the Church, prompting commission members to resign, saying they could no longer do their work and that the privacy of victims had been violated.

Belgian officials dismissed that argument. Their unspoken presumption seemed to be that because of their inaction in the past, Church leaders cannot be trusted to act in the public interest on sex abuse allegations.

This is a huge issue for the Church, and Vatican diplomats will now work quietly with Belgian authorities to try to restore some measure of autonomy for bishops' handling of sex abuse cases. The fear is that other countries may take similar action.

[But this is over-interpreting an over-zealous raid that was in itself criminal because it involves breach of privacy of confidential files. The hostility of civilian authorities cannot hamper the Church from doing what it has to do. The Belgian bishops have already said they regret that the lay commission resigned on principle and intend to devise a new way to carry on with a systematic documentation of sex-abuse complaints against priests and bishops.

More importantly, according to a news report yesterday in Le Soir, Belgium's leading French newspaper and decidedly not pro-Church in any way -
1) The Belgian Minister of Justice yesterday denounced "the rather brutal way in which the police raids were conducted... which would tend to annul all the work that was done under terms of reciprocal trust and confidentiality which are an integral part of the work of justice".

Declaring himself 'personally embarrassed' by what took place, he added: "One does not harm the primacy and independence of the magistrate who ordered this (the raids) to say that the work of justice today cannot be limited to inquiries and prosecution - one must work for a reparative justice which in its global approach truly considers the need for respect that the victims have [presumably including their right to confidentiality]"

2) 250 Belgian physicians signed a letter protesting the flagrant violation of medical confidentiality laws by the seizure of 450 personal files regarding complaints of sexual abuse by victims who preferred to bring their complaints to the Church rather than to the police precisely for reasons of confidentiality. Many of these victims have also protested.

Four days after the Belgian raid, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that said the Vatican, even as a sovereign foreign state, did not have immunity from potential liability for the actions of a priest accused of sexual abuse.

Although the case hinges on a peculiarity of Oregon employment law, which is unlikely to affect similar lawsuits elsewhere, the action allows a lawsuit against the Vatican to go forward, raising a series of new difficulties. [As Vatican lawyer Jeffrey Lena has pointed out, there are no 'new difficulties'. The legal arguments used by bounty-hunting lawyers against the Vatican are all pretty well-defined and, in his view, legally untenable. What remains is to fight them outin court.]

One is a basic public relations problem: The Vatican will be going to court against an alleged victim of sexual abuse by a priest. [So? It is not questioning the fact that the victim was a victim, only that he cannot hold 'the Vatican' responsible for the crime of an individual priest. should the Vatican keep silent on a point of major principle just to avoid a 'PR problem"]

It will also be emphasizing that priests and bishops are not "employees" of the Vatican -- an argument that, whatever its legal merits, may leave the impression that the institutional church is trying to distance itself from the actions of its pastoral ministers, instead of assuming responsibility. [But that is a stupid interpretation! Should Barack Obama and the government of the United States be responsible for every crime that a state or local official commits in the United States? Neither Obama nor the US government is even considered responsible for any crime committed by an individual official or member of the federal government! Clear-headed Americans will easily understand the analogy - and start wondering if there is justice in letting the dioceses pay damages in behalf of a criminal priest found guilty of a crime of sex abuse, when that isn't done to a municipality or state faced with a similar circumstance!]

That's not how Vatican officials see it, of course.

"We need to explain what the universal church is and what the role of the Holy See is, with its various levels of responsibility, and show that it's a mistake to try at all costs to involve the Vatican in juridical responsibilities that it does not have," Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told Catholic News Service.

In Italy, meanwhile, Italian Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, a former Vatican official, was formally placed under investigation by judicial authorities in connection with a corruption scandal. Cardinal Sepe, currently archbishop of Naples, headed the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples from 2001 to 2006, and has denied all wrongdoing.

In Italy, being investigated is not like being charged with a crime. But the headlines left many Italians presuming guilt, not innocence. [DUH! Investigations are routine in all countries with a rule of law, and the MSM deliberately frame their headlines to scream a presumption of guilt rather than the constitutionally guaranteed presumtion of innocence till proven guilty.]

It also left some inside the Vatican wondering how much oversight there was over the evangelization congregation's financial activities, which range from funding missionary projects to managing real estate in Rome. For centuries, the congregation has enjoyed a certain financial autonomy. [The Secretariat of State, through its General Affairs division, presumably exercises routine oversight, as Cardinal Sepe has said that his annual budgets and financial statements were all approved by the Secretariat of State. More importantly, the problem alleged here is not that Congregation funds were mis-spent, but that the Congregation may have given favors to some Italian officials in terms of free rent or a sweetheart deal on real estate sales in return for monetary contributions from the Italian government's cultural properties department... But the Italian man-on-the-street is thoroughly familiar with such quid-pro-quo, and from Italian news reports, the Sepe investigation does not seem to be all that 'sensational'. Let the investigation run its course, then we'll see...]

The developments in Italy, Belgium and the United States all posed new challenges in the Church's relationship with civil law and civil authorities. But the most shocking -- and surprisingly public -- conflict at the Vatican in recent days was an internal church matter between two cardinals.

In May, Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna told journalists that Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, former secretary of state, had once blocked an investigation of sexual abuse and had offended victims by calling their complaints "petty gossip."

On June 28, Cardinal Schonborn met with Pope Benedict to "clarify" his statements on these and other issues, including priestly celibacy. Then Cardinal Sodano and the current secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, joined the meeting -- in what must have been a fascinating exchange.

The statement issued afterward chastised Cardinal Schonborn, saying essentially that a cardinal does not level accusations against a fellow cardinal -- that's something to be handled by the Pope. It also tried to put Cardinal Sodano's "petty gossip" remark in context. ['Tried to put'? You'd think the Vatican explanation was an unconvincing rebuttal! A Catholic journalist like Thavis who has lived in Rome for at least a decade and knows Italian well eough, should have been among the very first to point out the unanimously erroneous construction placed by the Anglophone MSM (and Schoenborn) on the word 'chiacchieraccio', and to remind his readers when reporting on Sodano's Easter tribute to the Pope, that Benedict XVI himself had used the term in his Palm Sunday homily - not to refer to the objective facts of sex abuse committed by priests but to the 'idle chatter of the dominant public opinion'.]

Cardinal Sodano is not just any cardinal. He is dean of the College of Cardinals, the prelate who, in the case of papal death [assuming that this particular Dean outlives the Pontiff - they are both 83] would preside over the funeral and lead the Church through the interregnum. It was therefore inconceivable to many in the Roman Curia that Cardinal Schonborn's finger-pointing would be allowed to go unchallenged. [More because of the blatant impropriety of Schoenborn's public accusation, not just because of Sodano's status!]

It was interesting that the Vatican statement did not deal with the substance of Cardinal Schonborn's criticism, instead emphasizing the dictate of discretion. Some critics said this was the Vatican reverting to its old ways of secrecy.

[It did deal with his petty and completely unfounded criticism of the word 'chiacchiericcio'. But why should it make a statement about Sodano's involvement or not in the Groer case when, evidently, that has yet to be formally established? It was neither the time nor occasion for such a statement. It has nothing to do with secrecy, only with prudency - 'look before you leap' - which is one of the four cardinal virtues, after all!

Surely Schoenborn knew when he made the direct accusation at Sodano that he was also pointing a finger at John Paul II. By Schoenborn's earlier account, Cardinal Ratzinger told him back in 1996 that 'the diplomatic wing' had won against his proposal for a formal investigation of Groer - i.e., John Paul II (who was still fairly healthy and exercising full powers in 1996) sided with the 'diplomats' over Ratzinger. Schoenborn's unnecessary 'defense' of Benedict XVI not only impugned another cardinal but John Paul II hismelf, who had experiential reasons for being 'skeptical' about sex-abuse charges levelled against priests and bishops. Surely, Benedict XVI neither wished nor welcomed any such 'defense' of him at the expense of others!]


Vatican officials take a different perspective. They said that in bringing together the cardinals and publishing an account of their meeting, the Pope was demonstrating his direct and more transparent approach to problems, and his determination not to let such wounds fester.

Likewise, they said, his meeting July 1 with German Bishop Walter Mixa, who resigned after being accused of hitting students and financial impropriety, was a remarkably open treatment of a problem that in the past would have been a strictly closed-door affair.

The Vatican published a lengthy statement after the encounter, as the Pope sought to turn a potentially divisive moment for the Church in Germany into an occasion of unity.

[Why has no one noted that with both Schoenborn and Mixa, Benedict XVI was giving an example of treating his personal friends impartially on matters of principle, even if it meant a public rebuke for one, and an admonition-cum-penance-setting for the serious misjudgment of the other who had lied publicly about an offense he later admitted?]

As he faces these and other challenges, Father Lombardi said, Pope Benedict has tried above all to be a "protagonist of reconciliation."

I don't know why one has to cite 'Vatican officials' to deduce these conclusions which are self-evident to anyone who has any acquaintance with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI on the basis of his writings and actions!

This is the kind of vapid journalism verging on the absurd that results when someone sets out to write a piece based on a hypothesis - in this case, that the Vatican is facing tremendous unprecedented challenges this summer - that he must then try to substantiate.


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Another vicious, inaccurate,
and contradictory New York Times
attack on Pope Benedict

By Phil Lawler

July 02, 2010


Today’s New York Times, with another front-page attack on Pope Benedict XVI, erases any possible doubt that America’s most influential newspaper has declared an editorial jihad against this pontificate.

Abandoning any sense of editorial balance, journalistic integrity, or even elementary logic, the Times looses a 4,000-word barrage against the Pope: an indictment that is not supported even by the content of this appalling story. Apparently the editors are relying on sheer volume of words, and repetition of ugly details, to substitute for logical argumentation.

The thrust of the argument presented by the Times is that prior to his election as Pontiff, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did not take decisive action to punish priests who abused children. Despite its exhaustive length, the story does not present a single new case to support that argument.

The authors claim, at several points in their presentation, that as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Cardinal Ratzinger had the authority to take action. But then, again and again, they quote knowledgeable Church officials saying precisely the opposite.

The confusion over lines of authority at the Vatican was so acute, the Times reports, that in the year 2000 a group of bishops met in Rome to present their concerns. [I believe it was John Paul II who convoked the American cardinals to discuss the issue.]

That meeting led eventually to the change in policy announced by Pope John Paul II the following year, giving the CDF sole authority over disciplinary action against priests involved in sexual abuse.

By general consensus the 2001 policy represented an important step forward in the Vatican’s handling of the problem, and it was Cardinal Ratzinger who pressed for that policy change. How does that sequence of events justify criticism of the future Pope? It doesn’t. But the facts do not deter the Times.

The Times writers show their bias with their flippant observation that when he might have been fighting sexual abuse, during the 1980s and 1990s Cardinal Ratzinger was more prominent in his pursuit of doctrinal orthodoxy.

[What a stupid statement by the Times! That was his principal job as CDF Prefect. What is there in the phrase 'doctrine of the faith' that says or even implies that the congregation is also to be the Church's sex behavior police/tribunal for priests????

The implication of giving Cardinal Ratzinger this added - and really extraneous - responsibility was that John Paul II realized local bishops weren't doing their job at policing their priests and looking out for their victims. Turning this over to the Congregation for the Clergy might have made more sense, but the local bishops would be loath to report to Clergy; while the Congregation for Bishops does its 'investigative' work on candidates for bishop through the Secretariat of State and its apostiolic nuncios, so it is not exactly equipped for the job.

Let's imagine John Paul surveying the prospects in 2000. Clergy was out, Bishops was out - perhaps even the men in charge of these congregations at the time, Castrillon Hoyos and Re, militated against them because they were old guard defenders of the status quo. That left Cardinal Ratzinger, who was not only personally committed to upholding the holiness of priesthood, but also had the nucleus of an appropriate investigative staff with international experience in seeking out documentation and witness statements regarding possible unorthodox teachings by priests.]


But then, while until 2001 it was not clear which Vatican office was primarily responsible for sexual abuse, it was clear that the CDF was responsible for doctrinal orthodoxy. Cardinal Ratzinger’s primary focus was on his primary job.

After laying out the general argument against the Vatican’s inaction —and implying that Cardinal Ratzinger was responsible for that inaction, disregarding the ample evidence that other prelates stalled his efforts — the Times makes the simply astonishing argument that local diocesan bishops were more effective in their handling of sex-abuse problems. That argument is merely wrong; it is comically absurd.
[Worse than that! It's ignoring objective fact: They weren't 'handling' the problem at all! hey wer sweeping it under the rug.]

During the 1980s and 1990s, as some bishops were complaining about the confusion at the Vatican, bishops in the US and Ireland, Germany and Austria, Canada and Italy were systematically covering up evidence of sexual abuse, and transferring predator-priests to new parish assignments to hide them from scrutiny. The revelations of the past decade have shown a gross dereliction of duty on the part of diocesan bishops. Indeed the ugly track record has shown that a number of diocesan bishops were themselves abusing children during those years.

So how does the Times have the temerity to suggest that the diocesan bishops needed to educate the Vatican on the proper handling of this issue? The lead witness for the Times story is Bishop Geoffrey Robinson: a former auxiliary of the Sydney, Australia archdiocese, who was hustled into premature retirement in 2004 at the age of 66 because his professed desire to change the teachings of the Catholic Church put him so clearly at odds with his fellow Australian bishops and with Catholic orthodoxy.

This obscure Australian bishop, the main source of support for the absurd argument advanced by the Times, is the author of a book on Christianity that has been described as advancing “the most radical changes since Martin Luther started the 16th-century Reformation.”

His work has drawn an extraordinary caution from the Australian episcopal conference, which warned that Robinson was at odds with Catholic teaching on “among other things, the nature of Tradition, the inspiration of the Holy Scripture, the infallibility of the Councils and the Pope, the authority of the Creeds, the nature of the ministerial priesthood and central elements of the Church’s moral teaching."

Bishop Robinson is so extreme in his theological views that Cardinal Roger Mahony (who is not ordinarily known as a stickler for orthodoxy) barred him from speaking in the Los Angeles archdiocese in 2008. This, again, is the authority on which the Times hangs its argument against the Vatican.

And even the Times story itself, a mess of contradictions, acknowledges:

Bishops had a variety of disciplinary tools at their disposal — including the power to remove accused priests from contact with children and to suspend them from ministry altogether — that they could use without the Vatican’s direct approval.

It is not clear, then, why the Vatican bears the bulk of the responsibility for the sex-abuse scandal. Still less clear is why the main focus of that responsibility should be Pope Benedict. On that score, too, the Times blatantly contradicts its own argument.

Buried in the Times story — on the 3rd page in the print edition, in the 46th paragraph of the article — is a report on one Vatican official who stood out at that 2000 meeting in Rome, calling for more effective action on sexual abuse.

An exception to the prevailing attitude, several participants recalled, was Cardinal Ratzinger. He attended the sessions only intermittently and seldom spoke up. But in his only extended remarks, he made clear that he saw things differently from others in the Curia.

That testimony is seconded by a more reliable prelate, Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide:

“The speech he gave was an analysis of the situation, the horrible nature of the crime, and that it had to be responded to promptly,” recalled Archbishop Wilson of Australia, who was at the meeting in 2000. “I felt, this guy gets it, he’s understanding the situation we’re facing. At long last, we’ll be able to move forward.”

The Times story, despite its flagrant bias and distortion, actually contains the evidence to dismiss the complaint. Unfortunately, the damage has already been done before the truth comes out: that even a decade ago the future Pope Benedict was the solution, not part of the problem.


[The new 'wannabe hatchet-job' from the Times is, in fact, a Pandora's box of everything that's wrong with journalism today. There's a general breakdown and disregard of journalistic professionalism in the Times as in most MSM. Blatant personal bias is given the status of 'news'. Writers and editors are so smug about their 'moral superiority' over the objects of their vituperation that they can't even be bothered to read back their stories for logic, coherence and consistency - at least within the defined context of the bias and agenda that the story is supposed to push. But then if they did that, they might be led to check out facts, God forbid - no one does that anymore! Not among these so-called journalists.

But sensible readers do. Perhaps the greatest insult that the MSM does to its readers is to assume that they will not check facts. In Internet times, there is no excuse for failing to check facts. But judging from the inaccuracies that daily punctuate their news reports, the MSM writers apparently don't.

And people like Goodstein and Halbfinger apparently think they are well on their way to be the next Woodward and Bernstein - who will bring down a Pope, no less - despite the laziness, shoddiness, dishonesty and general unreliability of their work!



Then there's a commentary like the one below which I find problematic for reasons indicated in my 'annotations'. My iinitial objection is to the adjective 'tendentious' in the headline. It's much too weak to describe the shameelessly outright bias and malice of the writers, who, fortunately, were too blinded by their bias to mind their logic and end up contradicting their own hypothesis by some of the very things they cite!


How do you spell tendentious?
by R.R.Reno

Friday, July 2, 2010

A long article in today’s New York Times reports on some of the Vatican’s early responses to the sex-abuse crisis. The facts in the story, such as they are, appear good to know. But what the article tries to draw from it all . . .

In fact, of Pope Benedict’s career as Cardinal Ratzinger, reporters Laurie Goodstein and David M. Halbfinger announce the strong conclusion: “The future pope, it is now clear, was also part of a culture of nonresponsibility, denial, legalistic foot-dragging and outright obstruction.”

And how do they get there? Something along these lines:

Implied verdict #1: The irresponsible cardinal was thinking about theology when he should have been meeting with canon lawyers 24/7 to perfect procedures for prosecuting abusers.

Evidence for verdict #1: Although the sex abuse scandal made big news with revelations in Boston in 2002, there were plenty of early warning signs. And what was then Cardinal Ratzinger doing with his time? Not sorting out the legal procedures for dealing with disciplining accused sex abusers, but instead formulating theological reasons for rejecting the doctrinal distortions of liberation theology. Or, as Goodstein and Halbfinger mockingly report, examining the credibility of claims about apparitions of the Virgin Mary.

Implied verdict #2: Ratzinger culpably hindered the efforts by bishops to deal with the sex abuse scandal — and did so out of an obviously irrelevant concern about ecclesiology. [On this point, Reno misses the fact the writers' ignorance about the kind of liberation theology that the CDF opposes - and that doctrinal orthodoxy is the primary concern of the CDF, its very raison d'etre. Its responsibility since 2001 for investigating sex offenses by priests is actually an assignment extraneous to its real task.]

Evidence for verdict #2: In the United States, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken the most forceful position in disciplining sex abusers. As cardinal, however, Ratzinger spoke against the pretension of national bishop conferences, saying that they have “no theological basis” and “do not belong to the structure of the church.” Individual bishops, Ratzinger argued, function as the legitimate ecclesial authority in relation to Rome, not national conferences. [An argument that is non sequitur. Cardinal Ratzinger's opposition to bishops' conferences far antedated the sex abuse 'scandals' - and apart from their lack of theological basis or historical precedent, it is because they have constituted themselves into 'mini-Vatican's in the worst sense, and have been used as a cover for bishops to shirk their individual responsibility in cases that need accountability.]

Implied verdict #3: Ratzinger was part of a cabal of leaders in Rome who blocked reform — and did so out of a tender, irrational, and irresponsible regard for legalistic protections of accused clergy.

Evidence for verdict #3: It turns out the Roman authorities tend to assume innocence rather than guilt, giving the benefit of doubt to accused priests. The 1983 code of canon law established a five-year statute of limitations for accusations against clergy. (John Paul II subsequently extended it to ten years after the victim’s eighteenth birthday.) Moreover, the Vatican resisted efforts to substitute administrative judgment for a full ecclesiastical trial for defrocking clerics accused of sexual abuse.

Implied verdict #4: Ratzinger should have known about his jurisdictional authority — and this in spite of the fact that, as Goodstein and Halbfinger report, pretty much everybody in Rome was unaware of obscure instructions on the point.

Evidence for verdict #4: Way back in 1922, papal instructions invested the Holy Office (Ratzinger’s domain as cardinal, retitled the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith after Vatican II) with authority to deal directly with sexual abuse cases involving priests. This instruction was acknowledged by Ratzinger only in 2001. [But the instructions involving the CDF in 1962 and its predecessor office in 1922 had to do specifically with the use of the confessional to solicit sex or in the commission of sexual offenses - and this specific case came under the CDF's jurisdiction because it comes under its disciplinary function for misuse of the sacraments, in this case, of Confession. It's part of the general ignoracne about these old statutes that everyone refers to but appear never to have really read.]

Implied verdict #5: His head was in the theological clouds. Anybody with a scintilla of true Christian leadership would have remade himself as a canon lawyer as soon as he hears the news of the first sex-abuse scandal.

Evidence for verdict #5: A meeting was held in 2000, to address bureaucratic and canonical changes, but Ratzinger attended only intermittently and didn’t say much...

I could go on, but it would be tedious. It’s almost always tedious to refute tendentious reporting.

In any event the article ends up refuting itself, because the various bishops closely involved in the Vatican’s admittedly inadequate responses to the sexual-abuse crisis uniformly praise Ratzinger.

Australia’s Archbishop Wilson is typical. After the 2000 meeting, he reported: “I felt, this guy gets it, he’s understanding the situation we’re facing. At long last, we’ll be able to move forward.”

Move forward. Sigh. The Catholic Church rarely hurries, so the moving forward accomplished after 2000 has often turned out to be slow, cumbersome, and tone deaf. There is much, much, to criticize, and there are important questions to ask.

Why did (and do) some Church officials retreat into clichés, interpreting critical reporting of the sexual abuse scandals as part of a larger secular attack on the Church? [Because the so-called 'critical' reporting is exclusively destructive and blatantly disporportionate, and because they do constitute a secular attack on the Church. One would have to be xteremely dense, naive or self-deluding to deny that!]

Has the Church wrongly presumed the innocence of accused priests in its canonical procedures? [How can 'presumption of innocence till proven guilty' be wrong? It is a required condition for any trial in a rule of law.] Or is our current frenzy over sexual abuse distorting our larger sense of justice?

Do we want the Vatican to be a more efficient bureaucratic machine, clearer in its procedures and more aggressive in its use of authority? Or is the relatively cumbersome reality of Vatican authority a source of a desirable ecclesiastical pluralism and liberty?

Do we want Church leaders expert in canon law or learned in theology? Do we want efficient bureaucrats who know about all the obscure rules and instructions, or inspired men of faith?


[Why does it have to be one or the other? As Vittorio Messori often points out, the Catholic Church has a logic of synthesis - 'and-and' rather than 'either-or' - resulting hopefully in the Golden Mean.]

Unfortunately, the mandarins at the New York Times seem incapable of entertaining these sorts of questions. They are more interested in a hatchet job for which, in truth, they couldn’t find enough timber on which to chop away.

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The occasion for the Pope's visit to Sulmona tomorrow, July 4, is the Celestine Jubilee Year marking the 800th anniversary of the birth of one of his predecessors... St. Pope Celestine V's story is truly unusual...The tabular presetnation of his life is from a flyer prepared by the Diocese of Sulmona-Valva, which has really thought of everything. There is a four-page brochure that is a more extended version of it, as well as a comic book on the life of the saint.


POPE CELESTINE V:
Sulmona's San Pietro Celestino





A saint who will always be remembered for the bizarre manner in which he was elected Pope, and for the distinction of being the only Pontiff ever to have resigned, after only five months as Pope.

A solitary religious suddenly placed on the Throne of St. Peter who spontaneously abdicated from that glorious situation even though none disputed his position. It can safely be said that his sainthood had little to do with his having been Pope but with his long life of piety and ascetic monasticism before the historical accident that saw him elected Pope.

Pietro Angelerio (later known as Pietro del Morrone) was born around 1209-1215 in the central eastern Italian region of Molise, the 11th of 12 children in a peasant family. Seeing his inclination to piety, his mother saw to it that he received a good literary education.

In his daily prayers Pietro was said to have received visits from angels, saints and the Virgin Mary. He recounted everything with simplicity to his mother. Later, he became a hermit and the fame of his sanctity spread.



At 17, he had joined the Benedictines and was eventually ordained priest at Rome. His love of solitude led him first into the wilderness of Monte Morrone in the Abruzzi moutains, whence his surname, and later into the wilder recesses of Mt. Majella.

He took for his model John the Baptist. His hair-cloth was roughened with knots; a chain of iron encompassed his emaciated frame; he fasted every day except Sunday; each year he kept four Lents, passing three of them on bread and water; the entire day and a great part of the night he consecrated to prayer and labour.

As generally happens in the case of saintly anchorites, Peter's desire for solitude was not destined to be gratified. Many kindred spirits gathered about him eager to imitate his rule of life, and before his death there were thirty-six monasteries, numbering 600 religious, bearing his papal name (Celestini). The order was approved, as a branch of the Benedictines, by Urban IV, in 1264.

This congregation of (Benedictine) Celestines must not be confounded with other (Franciscan) Celestines, extreme Spirituals whom Pope Celestine permitted (1294) to live as hermits according to the Rule of St. Francis, but answered to their Franciscan superiors. In gratitude they called themselves after the Pope (Pauperes eremitæ Domini Celestine), but were dissolved and dispersed (1302) by Boniface VIII, whose legitimacy the Spirituals contested.



In 1284, Pietro, after having been abbot in at least three monasteries, returned to a hermit's life on Mt. Morrone for the next ten years. (This is how he acquired teh appellative 'del Morrone']).
In July, 1294, his pious exercises were suddenly interrupted by a scene unparalleled in ecclesiastical history.

Three eminent dignitaries, accompanied by an immense multitude of monks and laymen, ascended Mount Morrone, announced that Pietro had been chosen Pope by unanimous vote of the Sacred College and humbly begged him to accept the honour. Two years and three months had elapsed since the death of Nicholas IV (4 Apr., 1292) without much prospect that the conclave at Perugia would unite upon a candidate.

Of the twelve Cardinals who composed the Sacred College, six were Romans, four Italians and two French. The factious spirit of Guelph and Ghibelline, which was then epidemic in Italy, divided the conclave, as well as the city of Rome, into two hostile parties of the Orsini and the Colonna, neither of which could outvote the other.

A personal visit to Perugia, in the spring of 1294, by Charles II of Naples, who needed the papal authority in order to regain Sicily, only exasperated the affair, hot words being exchanged betrween the Angevin monarch and Cardinal Gaetani - at that time the intellectual leader of the Colonna, later, as Pope Boniface VIII, their bitter enemy.

When the situation seemed hopeless, Cardinal Latino Orsini admonished the fathers that God had revealed to a saintly hermit that if the cardinals did not perform their duty within four months, He would visit the Church with severe chastisement. All knew that he referred to Pietro da Morrone. The proposition was seized upon by the exhausted conclave and the election was made unanimous.



Pietro heard of his elevation with tears; but, after a brief prayer, obeyed what seemed the clear voice of God, commanding him to sacrifice his personal inclination on the altar of the public welfare.

Flight was impossible, even if he contemplated it; for no sooner did the news of this extraordinary event spread abroad than multitudes (numbered at 200,000) flocked about him. His elevation was particularly welcome to the Spirituals [followers of the Franciscan Joachim of Fiore], who saw in it the realization of current prophecies that the reign of the Holy Spirit ruling through the monks was at hand; and they proclaimed him the first legitimate Pope since Constantine's donation of wealth and worldly power to "the first rich father" (Inferno, Canto XIX).

King Charles of Naples, hearing of the election of his subject, hastened with his son Charles Martel, titular King of Hungary, ostensibly to present his homage to the new Pope, in reality to take the simple old man into honourable custody. Had Charles known how to preserve moderation in exploiting his good luck, this windfall might have brought him incalculable benefits; as it was, he ruined everything by excessive greed.

In reply to the request of the cardinals, that he should come to Perugia to be crowned, Pietro, at the instigation of Charles, summoned the Sacred College to meet him at L'Aquila, a frontier town of the Kingdom of Naples. Reluctantly they came, one by one, Gaetani being the last to appear.

Seated on a humble ass, the rope held by two monarchs, the new Pontiff proceeded to Aquila, and, although only three of the cardinals had arrived, the king ordered him to be crowned, a ceremony which had to be repeated in traditional form some days later, the only instance of a double papal coronation.

Pietro took the name of Celestine V. Urged by the cardinals to cross over into the Papal States, Celestine, again at the behest of the king, ordered the entire Curia to repair to Naples.

On the 18th of September he created twelve new cardinals, seven of whom were French, and the rest, with one possible exception, Neapolitans, uknowingly paving the road to Avignon and the Great Schism.

Ten days later he embittered the cardinals by renewing the rigorous law of Gregory X, regulating the conclave, which Adrian V had suspended. At Monte Cassino on his way to Naples, he strove to force the Celestine hermit-rule on the monks; they humoured him while he was with them. At Benevento he created the bishop of the city a cardinal, without observing any of the traditional forms.

Arriving in Naples, he took up his abode in a single apartment of the Castel Nuovo, and on the approach of Advent had a little cell built on the model of his beloved hut in the Abruzzi. But he was ill at ease. Affairs of State took up time that ought to be devoted to exercises of piety. He feared that his soul was in danger. The thought of abdication seems to have occurred simultaneously to the Pope and to his discontented cardinals, whom he rarely consulted.

Cardinal Gaetani vigorously denied that the idea came from him. But the serious canonical question was raised: Can a pope resign? As he has no superior on earth, who is authorized to accept his resignation? The solution was left to Gaetani, a trained canonist, who decided Yes, on the basis of common sense and the Church's right to self-preservation.

When the report spread that Celestine contemplated resigning, the excitement in Naples was intense. King Charles, whose arbitrary course had brought things to this crisis, organized a determined opposition. A huge procession of the clergy and monks surrounded the castle, and with tears and prayers implored the Pope to continue his rule. Celestine, whose mind was not yet clear on the subject, returned an evasive answer, whereupon the multitude chanted the Te Deum and withdrew.

A week later, on December 13, Celestine made up his mind. Summoning the cardinals, he announced his resignation and proclaimed the cardinals free to proceed to a new election. After the lapse of the nine days enjoined by the legislation of Gregory X, the cardinals went into conclave, and the next day elected Benedetto Gaetani, who took teh name of Boniface VIII.

Boniface immediately revoked many of the decisions made by Celestine during his five-month Pontificate, and brought the old man, dressed once again as a humble hermit, with him to Rome. He wanted to keep him in custody, to prevent his enemies from using the old man against him.

Celestine yearned for his cell in the Abruzzi, managed to effect his escape at San Germano, and to the great joy of his monks reappeared among them at Majella.

Boniface ordered his arrest; but Celestine evaded his pursuers for several months by wandering through the woods and mountains. Finally, he attempted to cross the Adriatic to Greece; but, driven back by a tempest, and captured at the foot of Mt. Gargano, he was delivered into the hands of Boniface, who confined him closely in a narrow room in the tower of the castle of Fumone near Anagni.

Here, after nine months passed in fasting and prayer, closely watched but attended by two of his own religious, though rudely treated by the guards, he died at the age of 91. It has been established that the report Boniface had him murdered was nothing but calumny.





Here are photographs taken last year (April 28) when the Holy Father visited the earthquake-stricken city of L'Aquila and its immediate surroundings. He visited the Basilica of Santa Maria in Collemaggio to venerate the remains of St. Celestine V, whose glass casket miraculously survived the earthquake although the central dome of the basilica had caved in.

Memorably, Benedict XVI paid homage to his predecessor by offering the pallium that was conferred on him on the day he was inaugurated as Pope.






Right photo above shows Celestine's resting place as it was before the earthquake.

While the Basilica of Collemaggio is undergoing reconstruction, St. Celestine's casket is temporarily in Sulmona, at the Church of San Filippo Neri located on the main Piazza Garibaldi where the Pope will say Mass tomorrow.

This afternoon in Sulmona, the casket was taken from the Church to the stage with the papal altar, where Mons/ Angelo Spina, Bishop of Sulmona-Valva, said Mass.



Benedict XVI returns
to the Abruzzo region

by Franca Giansoldati
Translated from

July 3, 2010


VATICAN CITY - After having preached Christian unity starting within the Church itself, and calling on Christians to remain faithful to the truths of the Faith - themes close to his heart and a constant element in his interventions - Benedict XVI will be making a pastoral visit to Sulmona tomorrow.

For the second time, he will pay homage to one of his predecessors, Celestine V, the hermit saint who lived on Mt. Morrone above Sulmone until he was elected Pope in absentia to break a two-year conclave deadlock in 1294.

The historical record shows that at the end of the 13th century, the cardinals were afflicted by a thirst for power and were split in their loyalties between the powerful Roman clans of teh Orsini and the Colonna.

The evangelizal witness of the early Christian centuries was but a vague memory. and the global credibility of the Church was very much in play. It was thought that a hermit saint, whose holiness already popularly acclaimed by the people, could restore a sense of order into Church affairs.

Papa Ratzinger feels great admiration for Celestine V, whose remains he visited at the Basilica of Collemaggio when he was in L'Aquila last year after the Holy Week earthquakes.

On the casket, he left the pallium with which he had been invested on his inauguration as Pope in 2005. [The papal pallium was replaced with a less cumbersome design in 2008.]

"San Pietro Celestino sought God in silence. He understood the gravity of sin as well as the need for mercy. His example is an invitation that is relevant today to read life as service and not as an exercise of power," said Mons. Angelo Spina, Bishop of Sulmona-Valva, who will be the Pope's host tomorrow.

Among the events tomorrow is one that will not be televised - a meeting between the Pope and a group of prisoners from the local jail who will come to the diocesan center.

This pastoral visit will be one of Benedict XVI's last engagements before he begins his summar vacation on Wednesday, July 7. He will leave for the summer residence at Castel Gandolfo after the General Audience.

For the rest of July, there will be no private or special audiences, and even the General Audiences will be suspended, to resume August 8. However, the Pope will continue to lead the noontime Angelus on Sundays and religious holidays.

His brother Georg will join him in Castel Gandolfo, as he has done every summer since 2005.

Obviously, he will continue to be in touch with the Vatican through a direct line to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. He may also supervise the final details preparatory to the publication of Volume 2 of JESUS OF NAZARETH.

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The official site for the visit has these two 'novelties':
a parish poster, and a prayer card (whose reverse side is identical to the parish poster). Otherwise, no news. The itinerary still does not have places, not even Cofton Park for the Beatification Mass.




The odd thing is that neither the visit website, nor the two resources above, carry the logo for the visit! Sort of defeats the very idea of a logo - an identifying brand - not to use it on everything that has to do with the visit!

I wonder what the Archbishops Nichols, O'Brien and Murphy-O'Connor told the Holy Father during their visit yesterday. 'Most sorry, Your Holiness - but we can't get you Coventry Airport, you'll have to do with a space only half as big."

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July 4, Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

ST. ISABEL (Elizabeth) OF PORTUGAL (b Spain 1271, d Portugal 1336), Queen, Mother, Widow, Lay Franciscan
Isabel was born in Spain to the future Pedro III, king of Aragon, when her grandfather Jaime was king. Her great grandfather was Frederick III of the Holy Roman Empire, and she was a great-niece of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, for whom she was named. She had a very pious upbringing which was her best preparation when at 12, she was given in marriage to Diniz, king of Portugal, with whom she had two children. As queen, she continued her life of piety, now amplified by her generous charity to pilgrims, strangers, the sick and the poor, as well as devotion to her husband whose infidelities constituted a public scandal, and for whom she prayed to be reconciled to God. Eventually, he gave up his life of sin. Before that, however, she had to step in to make peace between him and their son, the future king, who went to war against his father because he felt he was being passed over in favor of his illegitimate children. She also reconciled her nephew Fernando, king of Aragon, and another nephew, Jaime, who claimed the throne; and later her own son Alfonso, now king of Portugal, against his son-in-law, king of Castilla. When her husband died, she became a lay Franciscan and retired to a Poor Clare convent she had set up in Coimbra.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/070410.shtml



OR today.

Illustrations: Giotto, Celestine V (lower right figure in black) before St. Peter, from the Stefaneschi altarpiece, Pinacoteca Vaticana;; and unidentified painting of the delegation asecnding Mt. Morrone to inform the hermit Pietro that he had been elected Pope.
The OR anticipates the Pope's visit to Sulmona today with three stories about St. Pope Celestine V, whose 800th birth anniversary the visit commemorates - a page 1 reprint of a 1966 OR editorial about Paul VI's visit to Ferentino and Anagni, at which he paid tribute to Celestine V, who was buried in Ferentino after he died in captivity in nearby Castello Fumone, and Celestine's successor, Boniface VIII, who was crowned in Anagni; a historical revaluation of Celestine V's five-month Pontificate; and a recollection of Paul VI's 1966 Ferentino-Anagni visit. Page 1 international news: Both the US and Europe wind up the first half of 2010 still in the grip of serious unemployment; more Americans are declaring bankruptcy; and more civilian dead in continuing civil strife in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia.


THE POPE'S DAY


PASTORAL VISIT OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

TO SULMONA, Sunday, July 4, 2010




P R O G R A M

08:30 The Holy Father leaves the Vatican heliport.
Before landing in Sulmona, the chopper will fly over
the Abbey of Santo Spirito and the Hermitage of S. Onofrio sul Morrone.

09:20 Landing at the Serafini sports field in Incoronata outside Sulmona.
The Holy Father will be welcomed by
- Mons. Angelo Spina, Bishop of Sulmona-Valva
- Gianni Letta, Undersecretary to the Prime Minister's Cabinet
- Antonio Zanardi Landi, Ambassador of Italy to the Holy See
- Mons. Giuseppe Bertello, Apostolic Nuncio in Italy
- Gianni Chiodi, President of the Abruzzo region
- Giovanna Maria Rita Iurato, Prefect of L'Aquila
- Fabio Federico, Mayor of Sulmona
- Antonio Del Corvo, President of L’Aquila province

Travel by Popemobile to Piazza Garibaldi,
passing through Viale Mazzini and Corso Ovidio.

After passing through the various crowd sectors, the Holy Father will
receive a formal welcome from
the Mayor and the Bishop of Sulmona.

10.00 EUCHARISTIC CONCELEBRATION at Piazza Garibaldi
- Homily by the Holy Father
- Angelus

12.30 After the Mass, the Holy Father will take the Popemobile to the
Centro Pastorale Diocesano.
He will inaugurate the Casa Sacerdotale (House for Priests), where the Holy Father will rest
after lunch. This was recently restored and will be named for Benedict XVI. It is meant
as a home for sick and aged priests.

13.15
Lunch with the bishops of the region, Casa Sacerdotale

16:30 Still at Casa Sacerdotale, the Pope will meet a delegation from the Casa Circondiale
(municipal jail), including the director, the chaplain, the custodial agents, and some inmates.

16:45 The Pope will proceed to the Cathedral in the Popemobile, passing through Via Roosevelt,
Piazza Tresca and Via Matteotti.

17:00 MEETING WITH DIOCESAN YOUTH, Cathedral of San Panfilo.
- Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
- Introduction from Bishop Spina
- Greeting from youth representatives Francesca Orsatti and Cristian DiSanza
- Address by the Holy Father

The Holy Father will descend to the Cathedral Crypt to venerate the relics of San Panfilo and
Pope St. Celestine V.

17:30 The Holy Father leaves the Cathedral and proceeds to the nearby Communal Stadium.
Before boarding the helicopter, he will say farewell to the same officials who welcomed
him in the morning.

17:45 Departs Sulmona for Rome.

18:35 Arrival at the Vatican.





CONFETTI FOR THE POPE
A sidebar on Sulmona's most famous cottage industry - the production of sugared almonds and other sugared centers (dried fruit, chocolate, other nuts) in all colors and shapes to fit any artistic fancy:

The ancient Romans reportedly gave out candy beans sweetened with honey on important celebrations. The tradition was revived in the Abruzzo region in the 13th century, but when cane sugar was introduced to Europe from the New World, the industry took off in the Abruzzo region. Sulmona has been the acknowledged confetti capital in the past 250 years.

The sugar confections are known as 'confetti' (Italian for 'confected') and have gone far beyond mere colored beans to all kinds of 'flower' arrangements and other designs to fit any occasion. Confetti are made with pure sugar only, no flour or other thickeners.

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ARRIVAL IN SULMONA



With Mons. Spina, Bishop of Sulmona-Valva.

Some townsfolk chose to see the Holy Father first from the grandstand of the sportsfield where his helicopter landed.


The Holy Father Benedict XVI arrived by helicopter in Sulmona at 9:30 this morning after an overflight of Eremo San Onofrio and the Abbazia Santo Spirito on the slope and foothills of Mount Morrone overlooking Sulmona.

The hermitage and the abbey are both important places in the life of the Benedictine monk, abbot and hermit Pietro Angeliero later known as Pietro del Morrone because he spent much of his latter hermit's life on Mt. Morrone.

He was around 85 when a delegation came to inform him at his hermitage that a conclave in Perugia had elected him Pope. He took the name Celestine V, but resigned after five months, citing the following reasons: "the desire for humility, for a purer life, for a stainless conscience; the deficiencies of his own physical strength, his ignorance; his longing for the tranquility of his former life".


In the sportsfield, a young mother approached the Popemobile to have her 50-day-old baby blessed by the Pope.

Benedict XVI travelled by Popemobile to Piazza Garibaldi, in the historic center of Sulmona, where he was welcomed by the Mayor and the Bishop at a brief formal ceremony, and then concelebrated Mass.






The mayor of Sulmona welcomes the Pope.




MASS AT PIAZZA GARIBALDI


Libretto llustrations: Left, St. Pietro Celestino, Fresco, 14th-cent., Eremo S. Onofrio, Sulmona; right, 15th-cent Crucifix, Co-Cathedral of San Pelino.









Here is a translation of the Holy Father's homily:


Dear brothers and sisters:

I am very happy to be with you today to celebrate with you and for you this solemn Eucharist. I greet your Pastor, Mons. Angelo Spina, and I thank him for the warm words of welcome addressed to me in the name of everyone, and for the gifts he offered that I appreciate highly in that they represent 'signs' - as he called them - of the affective adn effective communion that binds the people of this beloved land of Abruzzo to the Successor of Peter.

I a=greet the Arcbishops and Bishops present, the priests, religious, and representives of church associations and religious movements.

I address a special greeting to the Mayor, Pablo Federico, with gratitude for his kind greeting; ti the representive of the Italian government, and to civilian and military authorities present.

And a special thanks to all who generously offered their collaboration for the realization of this pastoral visit.

Dear brothers and sisters: I came to share with you the joys and hopes, the labors and commitments, the ideals and aspirations, of this diocesan community.

I know very well that Sulmona does not lack for difficulties, problems and concerns. I think specially of those who concretely live in precarious conditions because of lack of work, uncertainty for the future, physical and moral suffering, and - as the Bishop reminded us - a sense of disorientation following the earthquake of April 6, 2009.

I wish to assure everyone of my closeness to you and that I remember you in my prayers, even as I encourage you to persevere in bearing witness to humana nd Chsristian values that are so profoundly rooted in faith and in the history of this territory and its population.

Dear friends, my visit takes place on the occasion of the special Jubilee year decreed by the Bishops of the Abruzzo and Molise regions to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the birth of San Pietro Celestino.

Flying over your territory this morning, I was able to contemplate the beauty of the landscape ,and above all, to admire some sites closely linked to the life of this illustrious figure: Monte Morrone, where Pietro led a hermit's life for so long; the Eremo Sant'Onofrio, where in 1294, he received the news of his election as Supreme Pontiff by the conclave in perguia; and the Abbazia Santo Spirito, whose main altar he consecrated after his coronation at the Basilica of Collemaggio in L'Aquila.

In April last year, after the earthquake that devastated the region, I went to that Basilica to venerate his remains and leave in homage the pallium I received at the start of my Pontificate.

Eight hundred years have passed since the birth of San Pietro Celestino, but he remains in history for the well-known events of his time and his pontificate, but above all, for his holiness.

Indeed, holiness never loses its attractive force, it does not fall into oblivion, it never goes out of fashion, but rather, with the passing of time, it shines forth with ever greater luminosity, expressing the perennial tension of man towards God.

From the life of San Pietro Celestino, I wish to draw some teachings that are valid even in our day.

Pietro Angelerio was a 'searcher for God' since his youth, a man who
sought answers to the great questions of existence: who am I, where do I come from, why do I live, who do I live for?

He set forth on a quest for truth and happiness, on a search for God, and in order to listen to his voice, he decided to leave the world and live as a hermit.

Silence thus became the element that characterized his daily life. It is precisely in exterior silence, but above all, in interior silence, that he succeeded in perceiving the voice of God which would orient his life.

There's a first aspect here which is important to us: We live in a society in which it seems that every space, every moment, must be 'filled' with initiatives, activities, sounds. Often, there is no time to listen aor to talk to each other.

Dear brothers and sisters! Let us not be afraid of making silence outside and within us, if we want to be able not just to perceive the voice of God but also the voice of those who are around us, the voice of others.

It is important to underscore a second element: the discovery of God by Pietro Angelerio was not the result of his efforts, but was made possible by the grace of God himself who allowed it. What he had, what he was, did not come from himself - they were given to him, as grace, and therefore, it was also a responsibility before God and to others.

Although our life is very different, the sasme thing goes for us: all the essentials of our existence were given to us without our contribution.

The fact that I live does not depend on me. The fact that there were persons who brought me to life, who taught me what it is to love and be loved, who trasnmitted the faith to me and opened my eyes to God - all this is grace. None of it was done by me.

By ourselves we cannot do anything if it is not given to us: God always anticipates everything for us, and in every individual life, there is something gf beauty and goodness that we easily recognize as his grace, like a ray of light from his infinite goodness.

That is why we should be attentive, we should always have our 'interior eyes' open, the eyes of the heart. If we learn to know God in his infinite goodness, then we shall also be able to see, with wonder, in our lives - as the saints did - the signs of God who is always near us, who is always good to us, who tells us, "Have faith in me!"

In interior silence, in the perception of God's presence, Pietro del Morrone also matured an active experience of the beauty of Creation, God's handiwork: he knew to grasp its profound sense, to respect its signs and rhythms, using them for what is essential to life.

I know that this local Church, as the other churches in thr Abruzzo and Molise, are actively engaged in a campaign of sensitizing the faithful to promote the common good and to safeguard Creation: I encourage you in this effort and I call on everyone to feel responsible for his own future, as for that of others, in respecting and protecting Creation - fruit and sign of God's love.

In the second reading today, taken from the Letter to the Galatians, we heard a very beautiful statement by St. Paul which is also a perfect spiritual portrait of San Pietro Celestino: "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal 6,14).

Truly, the Church was the center of his life - she gave him the strenght necessary to bear his harsh penitences and his most demanding momments, from his youth to the very end: He was always conscious that salvation came from the Cross. It also gave him a clear consciousness of sin, always with an equally clear consciousness of God's infinite mercy towards his creatures.

Looking at the wide-open arms of the Crucified Lord, he felt himself carried along in the infinite ocean of God's love. As a priest, he experienced the beauty of being an administrator of this mercy when he absolved penitents of their sins.

And when he was elected to the Chair of Peter, he granted the special indulgence of 'La perdonanza'. [It is a plenary indulgence to anyone who comes to the Basilica of Santa Maria in Collemaggio between sundown of August 28 to sundown of August 29 in prayer and penitence. It was patterned after the indulgence that Francis of Assisi had requested from the Pope in his time for penitents who visit the Porciuncula chapel between the afternoon of August 1 and sundown on August 2 - an indulgence gradually extended by subsequent Popes to all the churches of the Franciscan order.]

I wish to call on priests to be clear and credible witnesses of this good news of reconciliation with God, helping men of today to recover a sense of sin and God's forgiveness, in order that they may experience that super-abundant joy of which the prophet Isaiah speaks in the first reading today (cfr Is 66,10-14).

Finally, a last element: San Pietro Celestino, although he lived as a hermit, was not 'closed into himself', but was gripped by the passion of bringing the good news of the Gospel to his brothers. The secret of his pastoral fecundity was precisely in 'staying' with God in prayer, as the Gospel passage today also reminds us: the first imperative is always to pray to the Lord of harvests (cfr Lk 10,2).

It was only after this invitation that Jesus defined some essential tasks of the disciple: the announcement - calm, clear and courageous - of the evangelical message, even in moments of persecution, without yielding either to the fascination of fashion, violence or imposition; a detachment from concern for material things - money and dress - but trusting in the Providence of God; attention and care of those who are sick in the body and in spirit (cfr Lk 10,6-9).

These, too, were the characteristics of the brief and tortured Pontificate of Celestine V, and these are the characteristics of the Church's missionary activity in every age.

Dear brothers and sisters! I am among you to confirm you in the faith. I wish to exhort you, forcefully and affectionately, to remain firm in the faith that you received which gives sense to life and gives us the strength to love.

May you be accompanied in this journey by the example and intercession of the Mother of God and of San Pietro Celestino. Amen.




Before the Mass ended, the Holy Father led the Angelus prayers and had this message:


At the end of this solemn celebration, at the usual time on Sundays, I invite you to recite with me the Angelus prayer.

To the Virgin Mary, whom you venerate with particular devotion in the Shrine of the Madonna della Libera, I entrust the Church of Sulmona-Valva: the Bishop, the priests and all the people of God.

May you walk united and joyous along the way of faith, hope and charity. Faithful to the legacy of San Pietro Celestino, may you always bring together evangelical radicalness and mercy so that everyone who seeks God may find him.

In Mary, Virgin of silence and listening, San Pietro del Morrone found the perfect model of obedience to the divine will, in a simple and humble life, projected towards the search for that which is truly essential, always capable of thanking the Lord and recognizing in everything the gift of his goodness.

Even we, who live in an age of great comforts and possibilities, are called to appreciate a moderate lifestyle in order to keep the heart and mind more free and to be able to share what is good with our brothers.

Most Blessed Mary, who animated with your maternal presence the first community of Jesus's disciples, help the Church of today to bear good witness to the Gospel.


After the Mass, the Pope travelled by car to the Casa Sacerdotale (House of Priests) in Sulmona's Diocesan Pastoral Center to lunch with the bishops of the Abruzzo region and for a brief mid-afternonn rest.

Later, he was to inaugurate the Casa Sacerdotale, a facility for sick and aged priests, which, after recent restoration work, will be named Casa Sacerdotale Benedetto XVI.

At 4:30, before leaving the Casa Sacerdotale, the Holy Father will greet the members of the organizing committee for the visit, after which he was to meet with a delegation from the Casa Circondariale (municipal jail) of Sulmona - its director, Sergio Romano; its chaplain, Fr. Frnaco Messori; and representatives of the custodial force and of the detainees.

Afterwards, he will proceed by Popemobile to the Catehdral for a meeting with the youth of the diocese.


Pope praises life of
13th-century pontiff




Two Popes at a Mass: Benedict XVI's Mass in Sulmona today was offered in the presence of the glass urn containing the mortal remains of Celestine V.

SULMONA, Italy, July 4 (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI traveled to a central Italian town Sunday to pay homage to Celestine V, saying the simple lifestyle of the 13th-century hermit who resigned the papacy can serve as an example for modern men and women.

Benedict praised his predecessor for his detachment from material things such as money and clothes.

"We, too, who live in an epoch of greater comfort and possibilities, are called upon to appreciate a sober lifestyle," the Pope said.

Benedict, at times wiping his forehead, conducted an open-air Mass in hot weather before thousands of faithful in one of Sulmona's main squares.

In modern society, Benedict told them, "it seems that every space, every moment must be filled with initiatives, activities, sounds. Often there isn't even the time to listen."

"Let's not fear the silence inside and outside of us," he said.

The Pope also sought to encourage those still suffering from the earthquake that struck this region in April 2009. He said he prays for those who live "in precarious conditions because of the lack of a job, uncertainty over the future, physical and moral suffering and ... a sense of loss due to the quake."

The temblor killed some 300 people and drove thousands away from their homes. Benedict had visited the region soon afterward, praying before the salvaged remains of Celestine.

Celestine V assumed the papacy in 1294 at age 85 and resigned five months later, saying he was not up to the task. He was later put under guard for fear he would become the rallying point for a schism.

Celestine died in 1296 and was declared a saint in 1313.

During his daylong visit, Benedict meets with bishops from the region and local youths before going back to the Vatican.

The ANSA news agency reported that an unauthorized man was stopped by the Pope's security guards as he was seeking to approach the stage where Benedict was celebrating Mass. The man got nowhere near the pontiff, who continued officiating undisturbed, and was quickly escorted outside the piazza, ANSA said.

On Christmas Eve, Benedict was knocked down by a woman during a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, but the Pontiff was not hurt.











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AT SULMONA CATHEDRAL:
Meeting with youth and
visit to the crypt




The Cathedral of San Panfilo was built in 1075 and completed in 111; it was rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in 1706. San Panfilo was an 8th-century bishop of the region who is buried in the crypt of the Cathedral (chapel and tomb, right photo).

The last event of the day in Sulmona for the Holy Father was a visit to the Cathedral of San Panfilo, for a meeting with the youth of the diocese and a visit to the cathedral crypt.











Above, the Pope thanks youth rep Francesca Orsatti and her colleague Cristian di Sansa, after their greeting.

Here is a translation of the Holy Father's address to the diocesan youth of Sulmona-Valva:



Dear young people.

First of all, let me say how very happy I am to be with you. I thank God for the chance he has given me to stay some time with you, as a father of the family, and with your bishops and priests. But I also thank you for the words you addressed to me through your 'spokesmen' Francesca and Christian.

You have asked me some questions with a great deal of frankness, and at the same time, you have demonstrated that you have firm points of conviction. This is very important - that you are young men and women who reflect, who ask questions and have a sense of truth and goodness.

That means, you know to use both heart and mind, and this is no small matter! Indeed, I would say it is the main thing in this world to learn to use well the intelligence and the wisdom that the Lord has given us.

The people of your land in the past did not have many means to study, nor even to assert themselves in society, but they had what makes a man and a woman truly rich: faith and moral values. These are what build persons and civil coexistence.

Two fundamental aspects emerge from your words: one positive, the other negative. The positive aspect is your Christian view of life - an education that you have obviously received from your parents, your grandparents, and your other educators - priests, teachers, catechists.

The negative aspect lies in the shadows that obscure your horizon - they are concrete problems which make it difficult to look at the future serenely and with optimism. But there are also false values and illusory models that are offered to you, promising to fill your life when on the contrary, they only serve to make it empty.

What to do then in order that these shadows do not become too heavy?
Above all, I see you are young people with a good memory. I was struck that your spokesmen used expressions I had made in Sydney during World Youth Day in 2008. And you remember that it has been 25 years since World Youth Day was born.

But above all, you have shown a historical memory bound to your land - you spoke of a personage born eight centuries ago, San Pietro Celestino, and you say that you consider him still very relevant. Dear friends, in this respect, you are, so to speak, one step ahead.

Because historical memory is a step ahead in life - without memory of the past, there is no future. It has been said that history is a teacher of life.

The present consumer culture tends to pin down man within the present, to make him lose a sense of the past, of history. But doing so, it also deprives him of the capacity to understand himself, to perceive problems, and to construct tomorrow. Therefore, dear young men and women, I wish to tell you: a Christian is also one who has a good memory, who loves history and seeks to know it.

And so I thank you for having spoken to me of San Pietro del Morrone, Celestine V, and that you are able to appreciate the value of his experience today, in a world that is so different from his, but precisely because of this, a world that needs to rediscover some things that are always valid, that are perennial - such as the ability to listen to God in exterior silence, but above all, interiorly.

You also asked - how can one recognize God's call? Well, the secret of vocation is in the capacity and the joy of distinguishing, listening and following his voice. But to do this, it is necessary to habituate our heart to know the Lord and to listen to him - as a person who is close to me and who loves me.

As I said this morning, it is important to learn how to live moments of interior silence in our daily lives in order to be able to hear the voice of the Lord.

You can be sure that if one learns to listen to this voice and to follow it generously, you have no fear of anything, you know and feel that God is with you, that he is a friend, father and brother.

In a word, the secret of vocation is the relationship with God in prayer which grows in that interior silence, in the capacity to listen to the God who is near us.

This is true - before you choose, at the moment that you decide to follow the call, as well as afterwards - if you wish to be faithful and persevere in the journey.

San Pietro Celestino was this first of all: a man who listened, a man of interior silence, a man of prayer, a man of God. Dear young people, always find room in your day for God, to listen to him and to speak to him.

I would like to add another thing: True prayer is not extraneous to reality at all. If praying alienates you from real life or takes you away from it, then beware: it is not true prayer.

On the contrary, dialog with God is the guarantee of truth, truth with oneself and with others, and therefore, of freedom. To be with God, to listen to his Word in the Gospel, in the liturgy of the Church, defends you from the blinding glare of pride and presumption, from fashions and conformism, and gives you the strength to be truly free, even of some temptations that masquerade as good things.

You have also asked: How can we be 'in the world' but not 'of the world'? And I say: Precisely through prayer, through personal contact with God. It does not mean having many words, as Jesus told us, but to be in the presence of God, and in our mind and heart, to make ours the statements in the 'Our Father', which embraces all the problems of life; or adoring the Eucharist, meditating on the Gospel in our room, or participating meditatively in liturgy.

All this does not detach you from life, but it helps you to be yourself in every circumstance, faithful to the voice of God who speaks to your conscience, and free of the conditionings of the moment.

So it was for San Pietro Celestino: he knew how to act according to his conscienc, in obedience to God, and therefore, without fear and with great courage, even in difficult moments as those of his brief Pontificate, he did not fear the apparent loss of his own dignity, knowing that this consists in living in truth. And it is God who guarantees truth.

Whoever follows him does not fear even to renounce himself, his own ideas, because "whoever has God lacks for nothing", as St. Teresa of Avila said.

Dear friends, faith and prayer do not resolve problems but they allow us to face them in a new light and with new strength, in a way worthy of man, and even more serenely and effectively.

If we look at the history of the Church, we see that is rich with saints and blesseds who, precisely starting off from intense and constant dialog with God, and enlightened by faith, found creative solutions, always new, to respond to concrete human needs in every century: in health, education, work, etc.

Their enterprise was inspired by the Holy Spirit and by a strong and generous love for their brothers, especially those who are most weak and disadvantaged.

Dear young people, let yourselves be totally conquered by Christ! Place yourselves decisively on the road to holiness, that is, of being in contact and conformity with God - a road that is open to all - because this will make you even more creative in finding solutions to the problems that you encounter, and in finding these solutions together.

And that is another dictinctive sign of the Christian: He is never an individualist. Perhaps you will say: "But if we look at San Pietro Celestino, for example, in his choice of the hermit's life, was that not individualism, an escape from responsibility?"

Of course, such a temptation exists. But in the instances approved by the Church, a solitary life of prayer and penitence is always at the service of the community, it is open to others, it is never in opposition to the needs of the community.

Hermitages and monasteries are oases and springs of spiritual life from which everyone draws. The monk does not live for himself but for others - he cultivates the contemplative life for the good of the Church and society, so that they may always be irrigated by new energies, by the action of the Lord.

Dear young people, love your Christian communities: do not be afraid to commit yourselves and to live the experience of faith together! Love the Church: it has given you the faith, it has made you know Christ. And love your bishop and your priests: despite all our weaknesses, priests are a precious presence in life.

The rich young man of the Gospel, after Jesus advised himn to leave everything and follow him, as we know, went away sadly, because he was too attached to his possessions (cfr Mt 19,22).

But in you I see joy! This, too, is a sign of being Christian: thatt Jesus means a lot to you, and even if it is demanding to follow him, he is worth more than anything else.

You believe that God is the precious pearl that gives value to everything else: to family, study, work, human love, life itself. You understand that God takes nothing away from you but gives you back a 'hundredfold' and makes your life eternal because God is infinite Love, the only one that can satisfy our heart.

I like to recall the experience of St. Augustine, who as a young man, searched with much difficulty, for a long time, outside God, for something that would satisfy his thirst for truth and happiness. In the end, he understood that our heart is not at peace until it finds God, until it rests in him (cfr Confessions 1,1).

Dear young people, keep your enthusiasm, your joy - that which is born from having encountered the Lord - and know how to communicate this to your friends asnd contemporaries.

Now that I have to leave, I must say that I feel sorry to leave. With you, I feel that the Church is young. But I also leave happy, like a father who is serene because he sees his children growing and that they are growing well.

So walk on, dear young men and women! Walk the way of the Gospel. Love the Church, our Mother. Be simple and pure of heart. Be gentle and strong in the truth. Be humble and generous.

I entrust you all to your holy patrons, to San Pietro Celestino, and above all, to the Virgin Mary. And with great affection, I bless you all. Amen.







After the encounter with the youth, the cathedral crypt with the tomb of San Panfilo, relics of San Pietro Celestino, and an exhibit of objects associated with the latter.







Benedict XVI says priests
are a precious presence
'for all our weaknesses'



SULMONA, Italy, July 4 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday that "for all our weaknesses" priests have an important role in the world.

Benedict did not directly mention the clergy abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic church for months. But during a daylong visit to a central Italian town, he received a round of applause and words of support by local youths greeting him "in this time of harsh attacks and media provocation."

Minutes later, Benedict told the youths that "for all our weaknesses, priests are still a precious presence in life."

The trip to Sulmona was dedicated to honoring Celestine V, the 13th-century hermit who resigned the papacy saying that he was not up to the task.

Benedict said his simple and humble lifestyle can serve as an example for modern men and women. The pontiff praised his predecessor for his detachment from material things such as money and clothes.

"We, too, who live in an epoch of greater comfort and possibilities, are called upon to appreciate a sober lifestyle," the pope said.

Celestine V resigned just months after becoming pope in 1294 at age 85. He was later put under guard for fear he would become the rallying point for a schism. Celestine died in 1296 and was declared a saint in 1313.

Benedict, at times wiping his forehead, conducted an open-air Mass in hot weather before thousands of faithful in one of Sulmona's main squares.

In modern society, Benedict told them, "it seems that every space, every moment must be filled with initiatives, activities, sounds. Often there isn't even the time to listen."

"Let's not fear the silence inside and outside of us, if we want to be able to perceive not just the voice of God but also (the voices) of those who are next to us," he said.

The pope also sought to encourage those still suffering from the earthquake that struck this region in April 2009, killing some 300 people. Benedict visited the area soon afterward, praying before the salvaged remains of Celestine. [The glass casket containing the saint's remains actually survived the earthquake intact, despite extensive damage to the Basilica housing it.]



The Pope's meetings with
prisoners and with the youth

Adapted and translated from

July 5, 2010

SULMONA - The meeting between the Holy Father and a delegation from Sulmona's 'super-jail' took place in strict privacy at the Casa Sacerdotale yesterday afternoon.

But Fr. Ciro Benedettini, deputy director of the Vatican Press Office, provided some information. The delegation included the prison warden Sergio Romica, the chaplain Fr. Franco Messori, some representatives of the jail's custodial force, and five persons representing the inmates.

"I am very happy to be with you, although I would have wanted to be with all of you. I wish that you can all find your way and eventually contribute to society according to your abilities and the gifts that God has given you", the Pope told the inmates. "I will carry you in my heart".

The inmate representatives were chosen from those who are entitled to limited privileges of leaving the prison under Article 21 of italy's Penal Code.

After this meeting, the Holy Father proceeded to the Cathedral of San Panfilo where he met with the 'real strength' of the city - its youth.
More than 500 of them crowded the medieval church along with many priests. They spent the afternoon in prayer and song, waiting for the Pope.

[The report then mentions the highlights of the Pope's address to the young people.]

The young people applauded thE Pope often and enthusiastically, with chants of 'BE-NE-DET-TO'.

Their two spokesmen, Francesca Orsatti and Cristian Di Sansa, spoke about the crisis in a region that is suffering the consequences of a devastating earthquake last year, aggravating problems like unemployment, and the natural difficulties of young people undergoing transition towards maturity.

They also expressed their support for the Pope at a time when the Church is undergoing heavy criticism, saying: "We the youth of Sulmona are not afraid to shout to the world: Holy Father, we are with you!"


Thanks to Gloria for these pictures of the Pope's meeting with the prison delegation from her Photogallery:



The man in the Roman collar is obviously the chaplain, the man in the left photo above, a prisoner; but I cannot tell if the man on the right photo is another prisoner or the jail warden.




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Contemporary 'murals' for
11th-century cathedral of Sulmona



The bishop of Sulmona-Valva, Mons. Angelo Spina, has done a truly outstanding job of preparation for both the Celestine Jubilee year and Pope Benedict's visit to Sulmona as a highlight of the Jubilee.

A lasting remembrance of that preparation is visible in Sulmona's Cathedral of San Panfilo, one learns from one of the many sidebars on the diocesan website, and surely, the Holy Father must have been shown the new murals yesterday.

The paintings were presented to the diocese last week.


Inset: Mural on 'The Church announcing the msssage of Christ'

Mons. Spina commissioned a wellknown Italian muralist, Rodolfo Papa, to provide appropriate paintings for existing panels in the apse of the Church which were empty, and proposed six subjects for the panels: In the apse proper, the Apostles Peter and John, and Mary Magdalene as the first 'witnesses' of the Resurrection, and 'The Church announcing the message of Christ' which shows Benedict XVI guiding the ship of the Church: and on either side of the stairway leading to the main altar, the theological and cardinal virtues.


Right photo, artist Rodolfo Papa works on the Benedict XVI mural.


In addition, for a lunette over one of the cathedral doors, a panel showing Celestine V and Benedict XVI to commemorate the papal visit on this Jubilee Year.





In this picture, part of the panel on the cardinal virtues can be seen on the left, and on the right, the Magdalene and Peter panels are visible.




I will translate later Mons. Spina's explanation of his choice of subjects, as well as the elements in the Church-Benedict XVI mural.
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Monday, July 5, 14th Week in Ordinary Time

Second from right, a Barnabite icon showing Zaccaria and St. Paul, his inspiration. Statue, Founders Gallery, St. Peter's.
ST. ANTONIO MARIA ZACCARIA (Italy, 1502-1539)
Priest, Founder of the Clerics Regular of St. Paul (Barnabites)
Born in Cremona, the future saint was raised a by a pious mother who had been widowed early, and was a medical doctor by age 22. He became attracted to the religious apostolate while working among the poor. He renounced his inheritance rights, became a catechist and was ordained a priest at age 26. Assigned to Milan, he laid the foundations for three orders - one for men (the Barnabites), a second for women (Daughters of St. Paul), and a third one for married couples. The aim was to reform the Church among its priests, religious and lay faithful. Society was decadent and so was the Church, leading Martin Luther to launch the Reformation. Zaccaria became a passionate preacher of reform, doing public penance to set an example. He also encouraged daily Communion and Adoration of the Eucharist, as well as lay apostolate. As a reformer, he drew a lot of opposition but he persevered. His community was investigated twice but was exonerated both times. He became seriously ill while on a mission in 1539 and he was brought home to his mother. He died shortly after. He was only 36.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/070510.shtml



No OR today.


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with

- Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State, with his fellow priests celebrating the 50th anniversary
of their ordination to the priesthood.

- H.E. Ivan Rebernik, Ambassador from Slovenia, on farewell visit.

Afterwards, The Holy Father blessed the 100th fountain in the Vatican Gardens, built on the square facing the headquarters of the Governatorate of Vatican City State. The fountain is named for St. Joseph. The Holy Father gave an address in Italian before the blessing.


UK visit formally announced
Translated from

July 5, 2010


The Vatican Press Office has formally announced the Pope's coming visit to the United Kingdom.


Accepting the invitations from the Government of Her Majesty Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom, and of the Catholic bishops' conferences of England and Wales, and of Scotland, His Holiness Benedict XVI will make an apostolic visit to the United Kingdom on September 16-10.

During the trip, the Holy Father will
- Visit Her Majesty the Queen at the Royal palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh;
- Preside at a Eucharistic Celebration in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park;
- Meet with representatives of the political, cultural and business world in Westminster Hall, London;
- Take part in an ecumenical celebration in Westminster Abbey;
- Preside at a Eucharistic Celebration in Westminster Cathedral and a prayer vigil in Hyde Park;
- And finally, preside at the beatification rite of the Venerable Cardinal John Henry Newman in Cofton Park, Birmingham.

[A separate note says the official program will be made known later.]




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Pope hopes for private meeting
with abuse victims during UK visit

By Jerome Taylor

Monday, 5 July 2010


Pope Benedict XVI is looking into organising a private meeting with victims of clerical abuse during his upcoming state visit to Britain later this summer.


Mons. Nichols, left, with Lord patten, at a news conference in London today on the stateus of State and Church preparations for the Pope's visit.

Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster and leader of Catholics in England and Wales, said today that “careful consideration” was being made by the Vatican into holding some sort of private meeting during his four day visit.

Globally the Catholic Church is experiencing a raft of damaging new sexual abuse scandals, most recently in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the United States.

Although Britain’s own Catholic abuse scandals came out into the open primarily in the early 2000s, many survivors are still keen that the Pope make a clear gesture regarding paedophile priests during his visit to the UK.

During previous recent papal visits to Malta, Australia and the United States, the 83-year-old Pope has taken time out to hold meetings behind closed doors with people who were raped or abused by priests and nuns.

Archbishop Nichols was keen to emphasise that any decision over meeting abuse survivors would not be made to assuage the media or the Church’s critics.

“There will be, as you have seen in previous visits, careful consideration given to whether it is appropriate for the Pope to privately meet with people who have suffered abuse,” he said. “It’s very important that, if such a visit was to take place, it is not seen as a way to use those who have suffered – whose pain is intense and continuing – to satisfy some kind of public agenda or public curiosity. Nobody should be pressing the Pope to meet victims of abuse in order to get a good photograph.”

The archbishop said that he didn’t expect the Pope to spend all his trip “fire-fighting” the issue of clerical abuse and that he couldn’t say whether the Pope would address the paedophile scandal directly.

But he added: “He will obviously have to consider the balance between this being a visit to the United Kingdom – which is not Belgium, which is not Ireland, which is not the United States – and the wider public interest that there is in how the Church is responding to these issues.”

Archbishop Nichols was speaking as Lord Patten of Barnes, the Prime Minister’s special representative for the papal visit, admitted that the government’s bill for hosting the Pope’s visit will rise by as much as 50%.

Because the visit has both state and pastoral elements to it, the costs of the visit are being divided between the taxpayer and the Church.

Whilst the public will pay for all the state elements such as visiting the Queen and security costs, the Church will pick up the bill for the open-air Mass, prayer vigil and beatification ceremony that the Pope will hold during his four day visit.

Lord Patten, who is himself a prominent Catholic, admitted that the government’s previous estimate of £8m for their contribution had not taken into account the “complexity and sophistication” of hosting such a visit. Instead, he said, the costs are likely to be between £10m and £12m.

But even those estimates do not include policing costs, which will also have to be picked up by the tax payer. "We now reckon that on the Government side that we will have to make a larger commitment even though we have driven down the costs of some elements of the visit," said.

Lord Patten said it would not yet be possible to put a final figure on the policing costs because that would “depend on the estimates of turnout at particular events and that’s quite difficult to calculate.”

The Church’s contribution is estimated to be in the region of £7m to cover the pastoral events for the visit which takes place between 16-19 September.

So far, the Catholic Church in England, Wales and Scotland have raised £5.1m, £4m of which has come from private donors. Archbishop Nichols said the Church would have to continue fundraising to meet their costs but he was keen to stress that the public would not be called on to make up any shortfall.

"Yes, we will have to raise more money and that will not be a problem,” he said. “But we are not looking to the state to support the expressions and the celebration of Catholic faith. I would like to stress that not a penny is expected from public funding for those aspect of the [visit] that are an expression of the Catholic faith.”

There are now clear indications that the four-day trip will be comparatively scaled down compared to John Paul II’s pastoral visit in 1982.

The culmination of Benedict’s visit will be the beatification ceremony of Cardinal Newman, which has been moved from Coventry Airport to the smaller venue of Cofton Park in Birmingham which the Vatican prefers because the area is more intimately associated with the nineteenth century theologian.

An open air mass in Bellahouston Park, meanwhile, will be open to much fewer pilgrims than the 280,000 that packed into the park to see John Paul. It is thought the park will accommodate roughly 150,000 people for Benedict, partly because of modern health and safety legislation, but also because the park’s trees have grown in the past two decades restricting line of sight to any main stage.

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Pope blesses new
St. Joseph Fountain
at the Vatican




NB: Photo below right, is lifted from the PDF of the OR Page 1 and cannot be further enlarged without making the piels visible.


On Monday, July 5, Pope Benedict XVI blessed and inaugurated the 100th fountain within Vatican city state - a fountain named for St. Joseph and dedicated to the present Pontiff.

It is located at the edge of the green space facing the main headquarters of the Governatorate of Vatican City State, with teh apse of St. Peter's Basilica to the right of it.

The Holy Father was welcomed by Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, Governor of Vatican City state.






The fountain arises from a natural spring in the rocky surface of the Garden, and drains into two elliptical pools, one six meters in diameter, the other 8. [It must be noted that many public drinking fountains around St. Peter's Square and in the city of Rome itself are fed by natural springs.]

A curved wall forms a backdrop for the fountain, and features six bronze relief panels executed by artist Franco Murer, depicting key events in the life of St. Joseph - the betrothal of Joseph and Mary, Joseph's first dream, the birth of Jesus, the flight to Egypt, 'finding' the child Jesus in the Temple, and a scene from the daily life of the Holy Family in Nazareth.



Here is a translation of the Holy Father's remarks at the inauguration, which constitutes a most beautiful 'homily' on St. Joseph:


Eminent Cardinals,
Venerated Brothers in the Episcopate and the Priesthood,
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is with joy that I inaugurate this fountain in the Vatican Gardens, a natural setting of singular beauty. It is a work that adds to the artistic patrimony of this enchanting green space within Vatican City State, a space rich with historical-artistic testimonials from various ages.

Not just the meadows, the flowers, the plants and trees found here, but also its various towers, houses, little temples, fountains, statues and other structures make the Vatican Gardens a fascinating 'unicum', a singular place.

For my predecessorts as well as for me, the Gardens have been a vital space, a place to which I gladly come frequently for prayer and serene relazation.

In addressing to each of you my heartfelt greeting, I wish to acknowledge this gift that you have offered to me and dedicated to St. Joseph. Thank you for this considerate and kind thought.

It has been an undertaking that saw the collaboration of many. I thank, above all, Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, also for the words he addressed to me, and for his interesting presentation of the work carried out for this project.

With him, I thank Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano and Bishop Giorgio Corbellino, secretary-egenrtal and deputy secretary-general, respectively, of the Governatorate.

Likewise, my sincere appreciation to the Vatican's Department of Technical Services; to the sculptor and project engineer, their consultants and the artisans who carried out the work; and a special thought to the spouses (Michael and Dorothy) Hintze and Robert Castrignano of London [Patrons of the Arts inscribed for the Vatican Museums], who generously financed the work, and to the Sisters of the Monastery of St. Joseph in Kyoto. And lastly, my thanks to the Province of Trento, its communes and the Trentine enterprises for their contributions.

This fountain is named for St. Joseph, a figure close to the heart of the People of God and to mine. The six bronze panels that adorn it evoke moments in his life, and I wish to dwell briefly on these.

The first panel is the betrothal of Joseph and Mary - an event which is of great importance. Joseph was from the royal lineage of David, and by his marriage to Mary, he would confirm on the Virgin's Son - the Son of God - legal entitlement as a 'son of David', in cimpliance with the prophecies.

The betrothal of Joseph and Mary was, thus, a human event which was decisive in the story of man's salvation, in realizing the promises of God. Therefore, it also has a supernatural connotation that its two protagonists accepted with humility and confidence.

The moment of testing would come soon enough for Joseph, a test that was demanding on his faith. As the promised spouse of Mary, before living with her, he found out about her coming motherhood and was very disturbed. The evangelist Matthew underscores that Joseph, being a just man, did not wish to repudiate her, but decided 'to divorce her quietly' (cfr Mt 1,19).

But in a dream - depicted in the second panel - an angel made him understand that what had happened to Mary was the work of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, trusting in God, accepted this and cooperated in the work of salvation.

Of course, divine intervention in his life could not have failed to
disturb him at heart. To entrust oneself to God does not mean seeing everything clearly according to our criteria - it does not mean achieving what we ouselves have planned.

To trust in God means to empty ourselves, renounce the self, because only he who accepts 'losing' himself for God can be 'just' as St. Joseph was, namely, one able to conform his own will to that of God and thus realize himself.


The Gospel, as we know, has not given us any statement from Joseph who carried out his work in silence. It is the style that characterized his whole existence, both before finding himself faced with the mystery of God's action on his spouse, and afterwards, when - knowing about the mystery - he was with Mary at the Nativity, represented in the third panel.

On that holy night, in Bethlehem, with Mary and the Baby Jesus, the Heavenly Father entrusted to Joseph the daily care of his Son on earth, care that he provided in humility and silence.

The fourth panel shows the dramatic episode of the flight to Egypt in order to escape the homicidal violence of Herod. Joseph was forced to leave his native land with his family, in haste - another mysterious moment in his life, another test which required of him full confidence in God's plan.

Afterwards, in the Gospels, Joseph appears in only one other episode, when he goes to Jerusalem and lives through the anguish of losing his son Jesus. St. Luke describes the effortful search for the boy and the wonder of finding him in the Temple - as the fifth panel shows - as wella as the greater wonder of hearing him say the mysterious words: "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (Lk 2,49).

These two questions from the Son of God that help us to understand the mystery of Joseph's fatherhood. Reminding his own parents of the primacy of him whom he called 'my Father', Jesus affirms the primacy of God's will over every other, and reveals to Joseph the profound truth of his own role: He, too, is called to be a disciple of Jesus, dedicating his existence to the service of the Son of God and the Virgin Mother, in obedience to the heavenly Father.

The sixth panel represents the work of Joseph in Nazareth, alongside Jesus. The Son of God was hidden to men, and only Mary and Joseph protected his mystery and lived it every day. The Word Incarnate grew up as a man in the shadow of his parents, but at the same time, they too remained hidden in Christ, in his mystery, living out thair own vocations.

Dear brothers and sisters, this beautiful fountain dedicated to St. Joseph is a symbol for the values of simplicity and humility in the daily fulfillment of the will of God - values which distinguished the silent but precious life of the Guardian of the Redeemer.

I entrust to his intercession the hopes of the Church and the world. Together with the Virgin Mary, his spouse, may he always guide my way and yours, so that we can be joyous instruments of peace and salvation.




More information from a report in the July 3 OR:

A travertine block inset into the pavement in front of the panels carries a Latin inscription translated thus:

To Benedict XVI, Successor of the Apostle Peter, who was given St. Joseph as his heavenly patron at baptism, (is dedicated) this fountain in honor of the spouse of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, guardian of the Holy Family, protector of the universal Church and patron of workers. The 100th fountain in Vatican City is offered as a gift through the generosity above all of Patrons of the Arts of the Vatican Museums. July 5, in the year of the Lord 2010, the sixth of this Pontificate.


Franco Murer, who designed and executed the bronze panels, is a sculptor from Belluno, who previously designed two commemorative medallions for John Paul I and the stations of the Cross in bronze for a church in Canale d'Agordo, John Paul I's hometown near Belluno.

Murer won the competition for the fountain design over four other atists who were chosen on the basis of their work and professional career.

A palm tree has been planted in the space between the two panels as a symbol of the Holy Land.

The Vatican's department of technical services is marking the inauguration of the new fountain by publishing 3 volumes on the Fountains of Vatican City - the first on the Fountains along the Roadways and in the Woodland; the second on Fountains in Buildings and Monuments, and the third on the Fountains in St. Peter's Square and in the Vatican Gardens - to promote knowledge about the artistic and cultural patrimony represented by these special monuments.

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Cardinal Bertone, fellow Salesians
celebrate ordination jubilee with the Pope






VATICAN CITY, JULY 5, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and five Salesians ordained with him in 1960 celebrated their 50th anniversary today at a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Bertone, who has served as the Pope's secretary of state since 2006, marked his 50th anniversary on July 1.

The six priests had an audience with the Holy Father in his private library. Besides Cardinal Bertone, the others marking their anniversaries were Fathers Giuseppe Agliati, Sebastiano Bergherone, Franco Lacchia, Domenico Rosso and Stefano Rosso.

The Pontiff thanked them for their service to the Church and, after imparting to them the apostolic blessing, took leave of the group.

Later, the Salesians gathered in Cardinal Bertone's offices to concelebrate the Eucharist.

In the homily, the Italian cardinal highlighted the fact that these Salesians dedicated their activity to young people and the Church.

"Some of you have been parish priests, and one of you has been involved in youth ministry, though having celebrated his 75th birthday," Cardinal Bertone noted. "This means that the spirit of Don Bosco continues living and that we must thank the Lord for the gift of the priesthood."

After the Mass, the participants lunched with their brothers of the Salesian community of the Vatican, whose superior is Father Pietro Migliasso, director general of the Vatican Printing Press.

On Tuesday, Cardinal Bertone will close their jubilee celebrations with a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/07/2010 04:33]
06/07/2010 15:19
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july 6, Tuesday, 14th Week in Ordinary Time

ST. MARIA GORETTI (Italy, 1890-1902), Virgin and Martyr
Daughter of a poor farming family near Ancona, central eastern Italy, Maria never learned to read and write. The family migrated to a community near Rome. She was not yet 12 and had only recently made her First Communion when she was assaulted by an 18-year-old neighbor, Alessandro Serinelli, who stabbed her several times when she defended her virginity, telling him it was a sin and Jesus forbade sin. She died from her wounds the following day, but before dying, she received Extreme Unction and forgave her assailant. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Years later, he had a vision of Maria in heaven, which led him to repent. When he was released afte 27 years, he begged forgiveness from Maria's family and became devoted to her memory. Many miracles were attributed to Maria after her death. When shen was beatified in 1947, her 82-year-old mother and three surviving siblings joined Pius XII on the loggia of St. Peter's. Her canonization in 1950 brought half a million people to Rome, and for the first time, a canonization Mass was celebrated in St. Peter's Square. Pius XII held her out to the young people of the world as an example. Among the pilgrims was Serenelli, who was 66. (He had became a Capuchin lay brother, working as a gardener until he died at age 70). The main shrine to Maria Goretti is in Nettuno, 60 kms south of Rome.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/070610.shtml



OR for 7/5-7/6/07:


In Sulmona, Benedict XVI reaffirms the fascination of holiness, saying
'Light and strength come from the faith'
The issue presents a complete account of the Pope's pastoral visit to Sulmona on Sunday, honoring Pope St. Peter Celestine V on the 80tth anniversary year of his birth, with an editorial on 'The Pope's realism'; and a story on the blessing by the Pope yesterdya of the newest fountain in the Vatican Gardens named for St. Joseph and dedicated to the Pope. Page 1 international news: Former prime Minister Bronislaw Komorowski narrowly beats the late President's twin brother in elections to replace President Kaczynski who was killed with his wife and more than 80 Polish officials in a plane crash in Russia last April; a new report projects that by 2015, more than half of China's population will be found in urban areas.


No events scheduled for the Pope today.

06/07/2010 17:22
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UK government rep tells
anti-Pope groups to show
restraint during papal visit




LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) - Campaigners planning to stage demonstrations during Pope Benedict's visit to Britain should show restraint, the prime minister's special representative for the papal visit, Chris Patten, has warned.

Various protests are expected during the first papal state visit to the country in September, including by secularists, gay rights groups and those angry at the child-abuse scandal which has spread throughout the Roman Catholic church globally.

But Patten, a former Conservative minister and governor of Hong Kong, who was appointed by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron to help co-ordinate the four-day visit, said demonstrators should be free to express their opinions, but should not fall into the trap of intolerance.

"I hope that (the protests) will be done with restraint, and that it will be done with a show of tolerance," he said.

"It would be an extraordinary irony if those who polemicise past intolerance by churches are to become themselves the proponents of intolerance towards churches."


The trip, from September 16 to 19, will be the first papal visit since Pope John Paul II's pastoral visit in 1982 [and the first papal visit ever to Britain!] and the first state visit by a Pope to Britain.

Pope John Paul's visit was pastoral largely because it coincided with the Falklands war between Britain and Argentina.

Although Britain's child abuse cases were dealt with largely in the late 1990s, followed by sweeping reforms to the Catholic Church's child protection system in England and Wales as well as Scotland, some groups plan to demonstrate against the Church's failure to tackle the issue globally.

British author and atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins has said he will try to have Pope Benedict arrested to face questions over the matter.

Gay activists are planning protests against the church's attitude on homosexuality, while secularists intend to complain at the cost of the visit to the British taxpayer.

On Monday, Patten told reporters the public cost was likely to rise by up to 50 percent to 10-12 million pounds (NZ$22-26m), excluding security, because initial estimates had underestimated the "complexity" of the trip.

The Church's costs are to be more than 7 million pounds (NZ$15.3m).

"It is much more difficult than most, than any, state visit that I can think of, not least because of the amount of exposure the Pope gets to the public," Patten said.

The former European Commissioner admitted Britain's parliamentary election on May 6 had created a planning hiatus, but denied he had inherited a shambles from the outgoing Labour party, as had been suggested in some of the media.

The trip has had its hiccups though, including an apology from the Foreign Office after a civil servant memo was leaked suggesting the Pope open a hospital abortion ward, bless a gay marriage and launch a papal-branded condom during his visit.

"They behaved like offensive idiots," Patten said, referring to the civil servants who have since been disciplined.

Any tensions between the Catholic Church and Church of England, the Anglican mother church, would not be an issue during meetings, Patten, who is Catholic, said, despite the Pope making it easier for disaffected Anglo-Catholics to convert.

The Pope is due to meet the Queen, head of the CoE, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, its spiritual head.

"I don't think these are moments for playing out tensions," Patten said.


This supposed 'problem' has been reported earlier but this is from Jewish news agency...


UK Jews assail timing of
Pope's speech to Parliament



LONDON, July 6 (JTA) -- Pope Benedict XVI has come under fire from Jewish groups in Britain following a report that his address to Parliament will occur on the eve of Yom Kippur.

The Cabinet Office has rejected requests to change the Sept. 17 speech to earlier in the day or to a different day during the Pope's four-day visit to Britain, according to the Jewish Chronicle.

Though the speech at Westminster Hall is scheduled to end before the start of the holy day, Jewish leaders have said it will impinge on preparations for Yom Kippur and will not allow Jewish leaders and lawmakers to eat before the start of the 25-hour fast.

"Yom Kippur begins at sunset on the 17th. All that means is the event in Westminster Hall needs to finish in time for Jewish representatives to return home," a spokesperson for the Conservative government told British media. "That's always been planned for. There's no argument around that. The Church and parliamentary authorities have agreed the timing on the day."

Speaker of the House of Lords Baroness Helen Hayman is among the members of Parliament working to change the date of the speech.


The current membership of the House of Commons is 650, of which 57 are Jewish. Attendance at the Pope's speech is not mandatory. But if some Jewish members are complaining that they will not get to eat before the Yom Kippur fast begins, why don't they have a big meal an hour before the Pope's speech - which will not last an hour! Or they can always choose not to attend. This is all unnecessary quibbling - anything to be displeased about when it concerns Benedict XVI!

When the Pope came to the USA in 2008, he visited the Park East Synagogue in New York City - a specifically Jewish event - a few hours before sundown and the start of Passover, no less. All those hundreds of New York Jews, including children, who attended the event, did not raise a single complaint about the timing. Now 57 out of 650 members expect the schedule of a state event to conform to their convenience???]



Non-Catholics encouraged to take part
in Pope's visit to Britain

By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent

05 Jul 2010


Pope Benedict XVI will make the first-ever state papal visit to Britain in September. As members of the public were invited to see Benedict XVI regardless of their faith, it emerged that he will meet Nick Clegg, who is an atheist, and Harriet Harman, whose Equality Act angered the Church.

The Government is keen to portray the four-day state visit as a historic event that will enhance the country's standing worldwide and to highlight the Pontiff's commitment to social justice, in order to head off criticism over the costs and the child abuse scandal affecting the Vatican. [What nonsense! As if critics are going to swallow that at all. Or that would such reasoning would head off any criticism of the Chruch and the Pope in any way and for whatever reason!

The simple fact is that the previous Labour government, for whatever reasons it had, invited the Pope to make a state visit, and the new government is honoring that invitation. As for costs, which are mostly for security arrangements, the UK government would be spending just as much for any other important world leader visiting Britain as an official guest. Those costs are not going to be any less if they suddenly decided to reclassify the papal visit from a state visit to a mere official visit. The Catholic Church is spending for all the public events 'of religious nature' that the Pope is having - which means everything, except his meeting with the Queen and his address to members of Parliament.]


Lord Patten of Barnes, invited by David Cameron to oversee the planning, said that the significance of the first-ever state visit by a Pope to Britain was greater than the potential costs.

He told a press conference: "Even if we had known of the parlous state of the nation's finances, I'm sure that wouldn't have been a consideration because the importance of this visit makes its own claim upon modest public support."

The last governor of Hong Kong said Britain was not returning to the Middle Ages "or the days when we would have had to find a squirrel for the pot".

He said he himself had never felt "second-class" as a Catholic in Britain but that if anyone has, the Pope's visit will end that feeling.

As the Daily Telegraph disclosed on Saturday, the cost to taxpayers of the event in September is now put at up to £12million, excluding undisclosed security costs, up from £8m.

The Church claims it has now raised about £5m of its initial estimate of £7m for the pastoral parts including open-air masses in Glasgow and London and the beatification of Cardinal Newman at a park in Birmingham.

But the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, insisted that these events are not just for Roman Catholics, even though parishes are organising tickets for the "pilgrim journey".

He said: "These are events to which any person is welcome. All they need to do is contact their local Catholic parish."

It also emerged that the Pope will visit an old people's home - one of the suggestions in the notorious Foreign Office memo that mocked Catholic teaching - and meet political leaders including the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and Labour's acting leader.

The National Secular Society, which opposes the papal visit, estimates that the security costs of the trip will increase the burden on taxpayers tenfold. [He's clewrly not thinking! Security costs are the bulk of public expense for any state or official visit, so they would have been first to be factored in.]

Its president, Terry Sanderson, said: “The NSS is outraged but not surprised by the news that the cost to the taxpayer of the Pope’s visit is spiralling towards £100 million [?????] We predicted this would happen at the very beginning, although the previous Government denied it."

Unfortunately, it's in the interest of the secular media to keep the flames going over the question of the cost to the taxpayer of this visit, knowing that everyone is seriously concerned about public spending these days... Nonetheless, world leaders do not put their travels on hold because of costs. Queen Elizabeth is in the United States these days, and the US government will be spending just as much on her security as it does on high-risk target Benjamin Netanyahu who is also in Washington today, or any other high-profile world leader visiting the United States.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/07/2010 22:05]
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